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BOOKS BY HENRY CABOT LODGE 
Published by CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 



EARLY MEMORIES. 8vo net, $2.50 

THE STORY OF THE REVOLUTION. Illus- 
trated. 8vo net, $3.00 

A FRONTIER TOWN, AND OTHER ESSAYS. 

12mo net, $1.50 

A FIGHTING FRIGATE. AND OTHER ES- 
SAYS AND ADDRESSES. 12rao . net, $1.50 



i 



EARLY MEMORIES 



EARLY MEMORIES 



BY 

HENRY CABOT LODGE 



'Quo desiderio veteres renovamus amores 
Atque olim missas flemus amicitias." 
■ — Catullus, Carm. XCVI. 



NEW YORK 

CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 

1913 



■l; 



Copyright, 1913, bt 
CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS 

Published September, 1913 










MY CHILDREN AND GRANDCHILDREN 

I DEDICATE 

THESE MEMORIES 

OF MY CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 



PREFACE 

To begin a book with an apology is never desirable. Where, 
however, one writes about one's self or ventures to record one's 
personal recollections, some slight explanation seems almost neces- 
sary. Yet for what is contained in these pages I can give no 
better warrant or excuse than a passage from a very great writer 
who, it is to be feared, is not so much read now as he ought to 
be, or as he once was: 

"The life of every man/' says our friend Herr Sauerteig, "the 
life even of the meanest man, it were good to remember, is a 
Poem; perfect in all manner of Aristotelean requisites; with be- 
ginning, middle and end; with perplexities and solutions; with 
its willstrength (Willenkraft) and warfare against Fate, its elegy 
and battle-singing, courage marred by crime, everywhere the two 
tragic elements of Pity and Fear; above all, with supernatural 
machinery enough, for was not the man born out of Nonentity; 
did he not die and miraculously vanishing return thither?" 

Nothing really is easier than to find words of excellent appear- 
ance to explain the compelling motives for writing one's memoirs 
or reminiscences or autobiography. Whatever we may say, how- 
ever, whatever ingenious phrases we may employ, the main pur- 
pose is to write about one's self, and the efficient reasons may all 
be summed up in the simple sentence: "I do it because it gives 
me pleasure." In fact, to the well-regulated mind there is no 
pleasure equal to that of talking about one's self, and one's satis- 
faction is not diminished by the inexorable necessity of seeming 
to talk about other people. My preface is already too long, even 
by these few words, and I will therefore end it here, trusting 
blindly for what is to follow in the assertion of Leslie Stephen, 
that "no autobiography is dull." 



CONTENTS 



PAGE 

Preface v " 



CHAPTER 



I. Heredity 3 

II. Earliest Memories: 1850-1860 14 

III. The "Olympians": 1850-1860 39 

IV. Boyhood: 1860-1867 59 

V. Boyhood— My Last School: 1S60-1867 ... 81 

VI. The War: 1860-1865 112 

VII. Europe: 1866-1867 135 

VIII. Harvard: 1867-1871 180 

IX. Retrospect and Contrast 200 

X. Europe Again: 1871-1872 225 

XI. Starting in Life: 1873-1880 244 

XII. Public Men and Men of Letters .... 276 

Index 353 



EARLY MEMORIES 



CHAPTER I 
HEREDITY 

Every one in giving an account of himself would like, 
I think, to begin with the words of the Due de Choiseul at 
the opening of his memoirs: " Je ne vous parlerai pas, Mon- 
sieur, de ma naissance. L'on m'a toujours dit que j'etais 
gentilhomme aussi ancien que qui que ce soit. J'ignore 
absolument ma genealogie qui est, comme celle de tout le 
monde, dans les livres qui traitent cette matiere." We may 
still say, with a gentleman and a scholar who lived many 
years before the Due de Choiseul: " Honestissimum enim 
est majorum vestigia sequi, si modo recto itinere prseces- 
serint," l but it must be admitted that times and manners 
have greatly changed since the minister of Louis XV wrote, 
with a fine disdain, in this fashion. The little world where 
"everybody" could find his genealogy in "the books" has 
departed. The waves of democracy have submerged the 
old and narrow lines within which the few sat apart, and 
definition of a man's birth and ancestry has become more 
necessary. Moreover, Darwin and Galton have lived and 
written, Mendel has been discovered and revived, and the 
modern biologists have supervened, so that a man's origin 
has become a recognized part of his biographer's task. 
Therefore, he who writes of himself must follow the practice 
of those who write the lives of people other than themselves. 

My father was John Ellerton Lodge, a merchant of Bos- 

iPlin. lib. V. Epist. VIII, Kukula ed., Leipzig. 

3 



4 EARLY MEMORIES 

ton, an owner of ships engaged in commerce with China. 
He was the son of Giles Lodge, who was born in London in 
1770, the son of Matthew Lodge, a merchant, and Eliza- 
beth Ellerton. The Ellertons were an old family in the 
north of England, where a priory on the Swale and an 
abbey on the Derwent commemorate the antiquity of the 
race and their devotion to the church, both foundations 
bearing the Ellerton name. The abbey was still in the pos- 
session of the family in 1866. At that time a cousin of my 
father had changed his name to John Lodge Ellerton in 
order to inherit the property, which, I think, was of slight 
pecuniary value, and, as he had no children, he asked my 
mother to let me take the name of Ellerton and remain 
in England, a proposition wisely declined without previ- 
ous consultation of the person most concerned, although I 
should have cheerfully ratified the decision. 

According to Burke's "Royal Descents," Matthew 
Lodge was descended from Francis Lodge, archdeacon of 
Killaloe at the beginning of the seventeenth century. I 
find in Dwyer's "History of the Diocese" that the name of 
the archdeacon was Thomas Lodge, that he was archdeacon 
from 1624 to 1638, and that he was a graduate of Oxford. 
There are four of the name in the Oxford lists of about 
that period, and it was not possible, with such research as 
I could give, to identify the archdeacon. I should have 
liked to connect him with Thomas Lodge the poet, but be- 
yond the fact that the arms of my ancestors are identical 
with those of the poet's father, a rich grocer and Lord 
Mayor of London in 1563, I could discover no evidence 
of relationship. My grandfather, Giles Lodge, who, as I 
have said, was born in London in 1770, was in the West 
Indies in 1791 on business for his brothers, who were mer- 
chants in London and Liverpool. He was caught at Santo 
Domingo in the rising of the blacks which occurred in 



HEREDITY 5 

August of that year. Presence of mind and the fact that 
he spoke French fluently enabled him to escape the mas- 
sacre and take refuge on an American schooner which 
brought him to Boston. Coming to Massachusetts by the 
merest accident, he found a good business opening in Bos- 
ton, settled there, became a merchant and the correspond- 
ent of his brothers, and never returned to England ; in fact, 
he never left America again. In 1800 he married Mary 
Langdon, the daughter of John Langdon, who had been a 
stationer, then a captain in the Continental army during 
the Revolution, and who finally held a place in the custom- 
house, to which he was appointed by Washington. John 
Langdon's cousin, Samuel Langdon, was the president of 
Harvard College at the time of the Revolution, and prayed 
for the troops drawn up on Cambridge Common on the 
evening of June 16, just before they set out for Bunker 
Hill. The Langdons were descended from John and Philip 
Langdon, who came to New England in the seventeenth 
century, sailors and ship-captains, and such their descend- 
ants continued to be for a hundred years. John Langdon's 
wife, the mother of Mrs. Giles Lodge, was Mary Walley, 
the daughter of Thomas Walley, a prosperous merchant of 
Boston, grandson on the mother's side of Thomas Brattle, 
one of a family eminent in Colonial times, and on the 
father's side grandson of John Walley, lieutenant-general of 
the Canadian expedition in 1690, and later a judge of the 
Supreme Court. 

My grandfather, Giles Lodge, died in 1852 in the eighty- 
third year of his age. I have been told that he knew me, 
and was pleased to like me, but of him personally I have, 
of course, no recollection whatever. His portrait shows 
that he was fair, and the face which looks out from the 
picture is handsome, gentle, and refined. The family tra- 
dition represents him as a gentleman of somewhat deter- 



6 EARLY MEMORIES 

mined character, "whose word was law," and whose laws 
were promulgated in the most concise form and were sub- 
ject to no debate. My mother always spoke of him with 
great affection, and said that he was invariably most kind 
to her. Apart from his picture, the family tradition, and 
some business letters, I have nothing which throws any light 
upon him or his character except his cane and a few books, 
my father's small portion, I suppose, of the library, which 
was divided among many children. A cane would not 
seem to be a very illuminating witness, and yet this particu- 
lar stick has seemed to me full of meaning. I have never 
been able to use it; it is not long enough for me — thus 
showing that its owner was a short man. It is a blackthorn, 
with a long steel ferrule, and a large irregular piece of ivory 
fitted tightly down on the top. It is very thick, very for- 
midable as a weapon, very determined in appearance. Al- 
together, it is a stick with a great deal of sturdy character, 
like its possessor. It is a cane which might have supported 
the tottering footsteps of any man, and yet it distinctly sug- 
gests, as one grasps it, that its owner never either wavered 
or tottered in his walk. 

The books with my grandfather's name written on the 
fly-leaves, in his neat, precise hand, tell another story and 
seem to show another side. Most of them are, as one 
might expect, eighteenth-century classics: "The Spectator," 
"The Tatler," "Hume's Essays," and the like. Neat little 
volumes, good editions, in excellent contemporary binding, 
they, too, seem characteristic of their possessor. Then 
there are Pope's translations of the Iliad and Odyssey, also 
in the "reliure de l'epoque," which is much worn by use 
rather than by time. But the surprising book is a very 
pretty and complete edition of Spenser, evidently much 
read in its day and generation. I have often wondered 
what the element was in my grandfather's temperament 



HEREDITY 7 

which drew him to the great Elizabethan and made him 
love and read the "poets' poet," so alien to the taste of the 
eighteenth century and to the pursuits of a hard-working 
merchant and man of business. 

My father's mother I never even saw. She died before 
I was born, and, except for the fact that my mother was 
fond of her, I know nothing about her. There is a hard 
portrait of her in the possession of the family, painted by 
Rembrandt Peale. The features are clear and well-cut, 
but my poor grandmother is so disfigured by the turban 
she has on that it is difficult to tell whether she was good- 
looking or not. It was a hideous fashion, that of the turban, 
so prevalent in those early nineteenth-century days, and 
when I read of the game of whist in which Mr. Pickwick en- 
gaged at Bath I used to wonder, most irreverently, if the 
Dowager Lady Snuphanuph looked like my grandmother's 
portrait. Now the wheel of fashion has revolved, and I 
see indications of the renascence of the turbans of our 
grandmothers. 

My mother was Anna Cabot, the daughter of Henry 
Cabot and Anna Blake, the daughter of John Welland 
Blake, descended from William Blake, who was a cousin 
of Robert Blake, the great admiral of the Commonwealth. 
William Blake came to Massachusetts in 1630, was for forty 
years town clerk of Dorchester, and left many descend- 
ants. My grandmother Cabot died before I was born, 
but she was one of the women who make such a deep im- 
pression upon those about them that I have always felt 
as if I had known her. Not only in the family, but from 
all my grandfather's old friends, I used to hear continually, 
until the last one who remembered her had passed from 
the stage, of her beauty and grace, her abiding charm and 
fascinating qualities. Venerable gentlemen, when I had 
grown up, used to tell me of her many attractions with such 



8 EARLY MEMORIES 

emphasis and insistence that I frequently had an uneasy 
feeling at the back of my mind that they were thinking how 
unlike she was to some of her grandchildren. None the 
less, it was pleasant to hear such things said of her, and 
her bust by Greenough and her portrait painted by an 
English artist when she was in Europe in 1837 certainly, 
so far as they can, bear out the tradition. 

My grandfather, Henry Cabot, was the son of George 
Cabot and Elizabeth Higginson, who were double first 
cousins. In this way my grandfather was doubly descended 
from the Reverend Francis Higginson, a graduate of Cam- 
bridge, England, and the first minister of the first church of 
Salem in 1630. My colleague, Senator Hoar, was also a 
descendant of Francis Higginson, and one day he told me, 
with great satisfaction, that through Francis Higginson 
we were both descended from the sister of Chaucer. I 
received the information with due respect because Mr. 
Hoar seemed so pleased, but I confess the connection struck 
me as a trifle remote. 

The Cabots came to Salem from the island of Jersey 
toward the close of the seventeenth centuiy. They were 
a numerous race in the Channel islands, of pure Norman 
extraction, as Stowe gives one of that name in his list of 
those who accompanied William the Conqueror to England. 
From this Norman island stock came the Chabots and 
Rohan-Chabots and others of the name in France, as well 
as the Italian branch, including the navigators, or their 
immediate ancestors, as is shown by the identity of arms 
and other evidences. The two brothers who settled in 
Massachusetts married and had many descendants. My 
great-grandfather, George Cabot, left college in his sopho- 
more year to go to sea, became a sea-captain and suc- 
cessful merchant, and took a large part in the privateering 
of the Revolution. He then entered public life, was in the 



HEREDITY 9 

Provincial Congress, in the State constitutional convention, 
in the State convention to ratify the Constitution of the 
United States, and was chosen United States senator in 
1791. At the end of five years he resigned and retired from 
public service, declining the secretaryship of the navy to 
which he was appointed by John Adams when that depart- 
ment was established. He continued, however, to be the 
leader of the Hamiltonian Federalists in Massachusetts 
until his death, and in 1814 was president of the Hartford 
convention. He was the friend of Washington and a very 
intimate friend of Hamilton, whose measures he strongly 
supported when he was in the Senate. 

Mr. Samuel E. Morison, who has made a most thorough 
study of the politics of that period, in his paper upon "The 
First National Nominating Convention of 1808," describes 
Mr. Cabot's position at that time in the following words: 

"The chief support of the Clinton coalition came from 
Boston. Otis, whose eloquence, it is said, turned the bal- 
ance in favor of DeWitt Clinton in the Federalist convention 
of 1812, was equally strong in favor of George Clinton in 
1808. Another powerful advocate of coalition was George 
Cabot. Cabot since 1804 had occupied in his party a posi- 
tion similar to that of Jefferson in the Republican party 
after 1808. From Brookline, as from Monticello, the active 
party leaders received letters that spoke with authority. 
Easily the intellectual leader of his party since the death of 
Hamilton, George Cabot in his study at Brookline saw what 
no other Federalist had the wisdom to see, that a page of 
democratic evolution had been turned, and the days of 
Federalist ascendancy had passed never to return." 

Soon after my graduation from Harvard I published 
Mr. Cabot's letters, with an accompanying memoir. I omit- 
ted, through ignorance of its existence, the description of 
him given by William Ellery Channing in his article upon 



10 EARLY MEMORIES 

the "Union/' which I ought to have put by the side of 
Webster's brief eulogy. I now place it here, because it is 
the best estimate of Mr. Cabot's character and services by 
a contemporary that I have ever seen. I will give what 
Mr. Webster said first, and then Channing's more elaborate 
analysis. In his brief autobiography 1 Mr. Webster wrote: 
"To my endeavors to maintain a sound currency, I owe 
the acquaintance and friendship of the late Mr. Cabot, 
who was kind enough to think me entitled to his regard." 
In his speech before the New England Society of New 
York in 1843 he said: "And the mention of the father of 
my friend, Mr. Goodhue, brings to my mind the memory 
of his great colleague, the early associate of Hamilton and 
of Ames, trusted and beloved by Washington, consulted on 
all occasions connected with the administration of the 
finances, the establishment of the Treasury Department, 
the imposition of the first rates of duty, and with everything 
that belonged to the commercial system of the United 
States — George Cabot of Massachusetts." 

Channing, more elaborate, wrote as follows: 
"We know not in what manner we can better communi- 
cate our views of the Federal party, of its merits and de- 
fects, than by referring to that distinguished man, who was 
so long prominent in its ranks; we mean the late George 
Cabot. If any man in this region deserved to be called its 
leader, it was he, and a stronger proof of its political purity 
cannot be imagined, than is found in the ascendency which 
this illustrious individual maintained over it. He was the 
last man to be charged with a criminal ambition. His mind 
rose far above office. The world had no station which would 
have tempted him from private life. But in private life, he 
exerted the sway which is the worthiest prize of a lofty 
ambition. He was consulted with something of the re- 

1 Writings, &c, of Daniel Webster, National Edition, Vol. XVII, p. 26. 



HEREDITY 11 

spect which was paid to an ancient oracle, and no mind 
among us contributed so much to the control of public 
affairs. It is interesting to inquire by what intellectual 
attributes he gained this influence; and, as his character 
now belongs to history, perhaps we may render no unaccept- 
able service in delineating its leading features. 

"We think, that he was distinguished by nothing so 
much as by the power of ascending to general principles, 
and by the reverence and constancy with which he adhered 
to them. The great truths of history and experience, the 
immutable laws of human nature, according to which all 
measures should be framed, shone on his intellectual eye 
with an unclouded brightness. No impatience of present 
evils, no eagerness for immediate good, ever tempted him 
to think, that these might be forsaken with impunity. b To 
these he referred all questions on which he was called to 
judge, and accordingly his conversation had a character of 
comprehensive wisdom, which, joined with his urbanity, 
secured to him a singular sway over the minds of his hearers. 
With such a mind, he of course held in contempt the tem- 
porary expedients and motley legislation of common-place 
politicians. He looked with singular aversion on everything 
factitious, forced, and complicated in policy. We have 
understood, that by the native strength and simplicity of 
his mind, he anticipated the lights, which philosophy and 
experience have recently thrown on the importance of leav- 
ing enterprise, industry, and commerce free. He carried 
into politics the great axiom which the ancient sages car- 
ried into morals, 'Follow nature.' In an age of reading, 
he leaned less than most men on books. A more independ- 
ent mind our country perhaps has not produced. When we 
think of his whole character, when with the sagacity of his 
intellect we combine the integrity of his heart, the dignified 
grace of his manners, and the charm of his conversation, 



12 EARLY MEMORIES 

we hardly know the individual, with the exception of Wash- 
ington, whom we should have offered more willingly to a 
foreigner as a specimen of the men whom America can 
produce. 

"Still we think, that his fine qualities were shaded by 
what to us is a great defect, though to some it may appear 
a proof of his wisdom. He wanted a just faith in man's 
capacity of freedom, at least in that degree of it which our 
institutions suppose. He inclined to dark views of the 
condition and prospects of his country. He had too much 
of the wisdom of experience. He wanted what may be 
called the wisdom of hope. In man's past history he read 
too much what is to come, and measured our present capac- 
ity of political good too much by the unsuccessful experi- 
ments of former times. We apprehend, that it is possible 
to make experience too much our guide; and such was 
the fault of this distinguished man. There are seasons, in 
human affairs, of inward and outward revolution, when new 
depths seem to be broken up in the soul, when new wants 
are unfolded in multitudes, and a new and undefined good 
is thirsted for. These are periods, when the principles of 
experience need to be modified, when hope and trust and 
instinct claim a share with prudence in the guidance of 
affairs, when in truth to dare is the highest wisdom. Now, 
in the distinguished man of whom we speak, there was little 
or nothing of that enthusiasm, which, we confess, seems to 
us sometimes the surest light. He lived in the past, when 
the impulse of the age was towards the future. He was 
slow to promise himself any great amelioration of human 
affairs; and whilst singularly successful in discerning the 
actual good, which results from the great laws of nature and 
Providence, he gave little hope that this good was to be 
essentially enlarged. To such a man, the issue of the 
French Revolution was a confirmation of the saddest les- 



HEREDITY 13 

sons of history, and these lessons he applied too faithfully 
to his own country. His influence in communicating 
sceptical, disheartening views of human affairs, seems to us 
to have been so important as to form a part of our history, 
and it throws much light on what we deem the great polit- 
ical error of the Federalists." 

As I conclude this brief outline of my New England an- 
cestry I am struck by the lack of what is usually conspicu- 
ous in such pedigrees — the clerical strain. Except for 
Francis Higginson, eminent indeed among New England 
divines as the first minister of Salem, and pathetic in his 
early death, brought on by his devotion to his people and 
his belief, I find on both sides merchants and sailors, sea- 
captains and soldiers, men of action and men in business 
and in public life, but no clergymen. They seem on both 
sides likewise to have been, as a rule, hardy, active, and suc- 
cessful, taking part in the life of their time, and filling a place 
in the world, whether large or small, by work and energy. 



CHAPTER II 
EARLIEST MEMORIES: 1850-1860 

I was born in Boston, as I have been credibly informed, 
on May 12, one pleasant Sunday morning in the year 1850. 
The house in which this event occurred belonged to my 
grandfather, Henry Cabot, for whom I was named. It was 
a square stone house of smooth granite, large, comfortable, 
facing south, and open on all sides. Two short streets called, 
respectively, Otis Place and Winthrop Place, ran out of 
Summer Street, and, curving to the left and right, met, and 
thus formed a horseshoe. At the bottom of the horseshoe 
stood our house, having on one side a small private lane, which 
was closed by an iron gate. This lane led to our stable and 
thence turned to the east and meandered in the form of an 
alley into Franklin Street. It was not much used except 
by the owners and as an access to our stable, but it offered 
a short cut to the business quarter of the town, which was not 
overlooked by those who were familiar with the neighbor- 
hood and anxious to save time. One morning somebody 
encountered Rufus Choate, who lived in Winthrop Place, 
hurrying down this alley, and expressed surprise at meeting 
him there. "Yes," said Mr. Choate, "ignominious, but 
convenient," and passed on. 

Back of the house was a garden, an ample garden, which 
ran out also beside the house to the street. Here stood a 
weather-worn marble statue of a garden nymph, which, 
with the assistance of a young friend, Sturgis Bigelow, I 
pushed over one happy day, and was thereby involved in an 

14 



EARLIEST MEMORIES : 1S5O-1S60 15 

Iliad of woes, not because of the mischief itself, but because 
I undertook to lay the responsibility upon my companion, 
a mean-spirited effort that aroused my father's just anger, 
which I greatly dreaded, although he never inflicted the 
slightest physical punishment upon me. The garden was 
a sunny and sheltered spot, and behind the nymph of 
bitter memories stood some fine pear-trees, much cherished 
by my father, and I have still the medals with which their 
fruit was crowned at various horticultural expositions. 

As I recall the old house (it was not really very old, but 
it was large and solid and spacious, with a fine air of age 
and permanence) it seems to me that there was an atmos- 
phere about it and its garden, and about the quiet court in 
front, and the like solid houses surrounding it, which no 
longer exists in Boston or in any American city. All that 
quarter of the town indeed was pervaded by the same atmos- 
phere. Hard by was Summer Street, lined with superb 
horse-chestnut trees, beneath whose heavy shade the sober 
well-built houses took on in spring and summer an air of 
cool remoteness. Farther to the east, where Summer and 
Bedford Streets came together, stood the New South Church, 
with a broad green in front and trees clustering about it. 
A little farther still and more to the south of us was Essex 
Street, which was dignified by great English elms. Two of 
these elms, a short distance beyond the house where Wendell 
Phillips lived, lingered on long after trade had taken posses- 
sion of the whole region. They seemed, in their last days 
of gaunt survival, like a melancholy protest against the 
destruction of the old town. 

It was long before I reasoned out the underlying meaning 
of all this, long after our old house and garden had been 
swept out of existence by the new street which was pushed 
through into the quiet court to make way for the roaring 
tides of business, which now ebb and flow over the spot 



16 EARLY MEMORIES 

without anything resembling a private house to be seen 
anywhere in the neighborhood. The fact was that the year 
1850 stood on the edge of a new time, but the old time was 
still visible from it, still indeed prevailed about it. I do not 
think that it was in itself a very remarkable year, and it 
has always seemed to me most noteworthy on account of 
the extreme and disagreeable ease with which one's age 
could be computed from it, but the year 1850 came never- 
theless at a memorable period and had memorable com- 
panions. I have often said and written that there was a 
wider difference between the men who fought at Water- 
loo and those who fought at Gettysburg or Sedan or 
Mukden than there was between the followers of Leonidas 
and the soldiers of Napoleon. This is merely one way of 
stating that the application of steam and electricity to 
transportation and communication made a greater change 
in human environment than had occurred since the earliest 
period of recorded history. The break between the old and 
the new came some time in the thirties, and 1850 was well 
within the new period. Yet at that date this new period 
was still very new, hardly more than a dozen years old, 
and the ideas of the earlier time — the habits, the modes of 
life, although mortally smitten and fast fading — were still 
felt, still dominant. The men and women of the elder time 
with the old feelings and habits were, of course, very 
numerous, and for the most part were quite unconscious 
that their world was slipping away from them. Hence the 
atmosphere of our old stone house, with its lane, its 
pear-trees, and its garden nymph, indeed of Boston itself, 
was still an eighteenth-century atmosphere, if we accept 
Sir Walter Besant's statement that the eighteenth century 
ended in 1837. At all events, it was an atmosphere utterly 
different from anything to be found to-day. 

The year 1850, too, stood well beyond the zenith of the 



EARLIEST MEMORIES : 1850-1860 17 

romantic movement, which in outward seeming continued 
in full control; but which was in reality upon the downward 
slope, as one can easily see to-day. On the other hand, the 
unrest, which was apparent in all directions, and the revolt 
against the reaction of 1815, was just culminating. Two 
years before, in 1848, the outbreak had come in Europe, 
and the movement which was to result in the consolidation 
of the United States and of Germany, in the unification of 
Italy, the liberation of the slaves, the emancipation of the 
Russian serfs, and the wide extension of democratic and 
representative government, was resuming its sweeping and 
victorious march, which had been checked at Waterloo. It 
was the day of the human-rights statesmen just rising to 
power, of the men who believed that in political liberty was 
to be found the cure for every human ill, and that all the 
world needed in order to assure human happiness was to 
give eveiy man a vote and set him free. Thus it hap- 
pened that the year 1850 came at the dawn of a new time, 
at the birth of new forces now plainly recognized, but the 
meaning and scope of which are as yet little understood, 
and the results of which can only be darkly guessed, because 
the past has but a dim light to throw upon the untried 
paths ahead. Yet, none the less, that which was first 
apparent to the child born in 1850, as he came to conscious- 
ness during the next ten years, was the old world which 
still surrounded him, for a child, happily for himself, sees 
only what is near to him — his present seems to have 
existed always and is haunted with no shadow of change. 
In 1850 Boston had a population of one hundred and 
thirty-three thousand, which by 1860 had risen to one hun- 
dred and seventy thousand, about one-fourth of the present 
population of the city proper, if we take the average for 
the decade. The whole State of Massachusetts had only a 
million people in 1850, less than one-third of its population 



18 EARLY MEMORIES 

to-day, much less even than the population now gathered 
in Boston and in those suburbs which can be distinguished 
by no outward sign from the city itself. The tide-waters of 
the Back Bay still rose and fell to the west of the peninsula, 
and that large region now filled in and covered with hand- 
some houses had no existence. The best houses of that day 
were in Summer Street and its neighborhood, then just be- 
ginning to yield to the advance of trade, or else were clus- 
tered on the slopes of Beacon Hill. Opposite to us in Win- 
throp Place, for example, were two large stone houses with 
yards or gardens like our own, one occupied by Joshua 
Blake, my great-grandfather's brother, the other by Samuel 
Cabot, and later by George Bancroft, the historian. On 
one side our neighbors were the Hunnewells and on the 
other the Bowditches. In Winthrop Place lived Rufus 
Choate, and close by in Summer Street or its immediate 
vicinity were the houses of Daniel Webster and Edward 
Everett, of the Grays, Gardners, Frothinghams, Bigelows, 
Lees, Jacksons, Higginsons, and Cushings. The list might 
be indefinitely extended, but I have mentioned names 
enough to show, especially to Bostonians, the character of 
that quarter of the town now extinct except for purposes 
of trade and commerce. 

Boston itself was then small enough to be satisfying 
to a boy's desires. It was possible to grasp one's little 
world and to know and to be known by everybody in one's 
own fragment of society. The town still had personality, 
lineaments which could be recognized, and had not yet lost 
its identity in the featureless, characterless masses insepara- 
ble from a great city. I do not say that this was an advan- 
tage; I merely note it as a fact. Local character may easily 
be repellent. Many of us prefer not only the interests and 
pleasures which only very large cities can give, but also the 
unmarked vagueness which is typical of huge hordes of 



EARLIEST MEMORIES : 1850-1860 19 

people as it is of the wastes of ocean. Whatever its merits 
or defects, however, Boston in the first decade of the sec- 
ond half of the nineteenth century had a meaning and a 
personality, and even a boy could feel them. It may have 
been narrow, austere, at times even harsh, this personality, 
but it was there, and it was strong, manly, and aggressive. 
It would still have been possible to rally the people in 1850, 
as they were once rallied against the British soldiers on a 
certain cold March evening with the cry of "Town born, 
turn out!" 

Yet again, whatever the advantages or disadvantages of 
this condition, Boston in those days offered for a small boy 
an opportunity to live contentedly within its limits. We 
could play in each other's gardens or yards, for generous 
gardens and large yards still existed, a bequest of the eigh- 
teenth century, when there seems to have been more land 
and more leisure for city gardens than there is to-day. Best 
of all, we had the Common, where we could disport our- 
selves as of right. There we played all the games, rising, 
as we went, on to football and baseball. There in winter 
we coasted on the "Big Hill" and on the long path running 
from the Park and Beacon Street corner, very near to the 
other "Long Path" made memorable by the "Autocrat," 
but which was less suitable for sleds than for lovers. 
We skated, of course, on the Frog Pond; and on the 
Common we also waged Homeric combats with snowballs 
against the boys from the South Cove and the North End, 
in which we made gallant fights, but were in the end, as 
a rule, outnumbered and driven back. What was more 
serious, the ever-increasing number of our opponents grad- 
ually by sheer weight pushed us, and still more our suc- 
cessors, from the Common hills and the Frog Pond to 
seek coasting and skating in the country. This was luckily 
not such a heavy infliction as might be supposed, for be- 



20 EARLY MEMORIES 

tween 1850 and 1867, when I went to Harvard, the country 
was reached as soon as one stepped outside the city limits. 
One had but to cross the mill-dam to attain to the country, 
for the towns close to Boston were in those days small and 
rural and had not yet become paved portions of the big, 
absorbing capital. 

I have spoken first of that which is most important to a 
well-constituted boy, as I hope that I was — the oppor- 
tunities for play and amusement. But what is technically 
called education began at the same time. I remember 
distinctly hearing my father say one evening: "That big 
boy is five years old and cannot read. It is time that 
he went to school." The statement gave me no pleasure; 
quite the contrary. My world, I thought, was very well as 
it was. However, the command had gone forth from the 
Olympians, and to school I went the following autumn. A 
friend of my mother, Mrs. Parkman, had formed the idea 
of getting together the sons of a few of her friends who were 
about the same age as her own boy, and thus making a little 
school which she could teach herself. The plan was car- 
ried out with marked success. The school was small, the 
boys were picked. Mrs. Parkman took an intense, affec- 
tionate, and personal interest in each one of us, the kind of 
interest that no money could buy; and then she was herself 
very different from any school-teacher I have ever known 
or heard of before or since. A descendant of John Eliot, 
the apostle to the Indians, of the best New England stock 
on both sides of the house, she was a well-bred woman in 
the fullest sense, and, what was rarer perhaps in those days, 
a woman of the world in the best sense. She possessed un- 
usual abilities, real learning, and was widely read. When I 
was at her school I regarded her with the settled hostility 
with which I think most vigorous boys regard any one who 
tries to teach them anything which is not a sport. In later 



EARLIEST MEMORIES : 1850-1860 21 

years, after I had graduated from Harvard, married, and 
settled in Boston, Mrs. Parkman became one of my best and 
dearest friends. There are few friendships which I look 
back to with more pleasure. She was one of the cleverest 
and wisest women, one of the cleverest and wisest persons, 
I have ever known. I delighted to talk with her about 
everything which was interesting me as a young man. She 
had both wit and humor, wide knowledge of men and 
books, and intense beliefs, as well as strong likes and dis- 
likes, but she never meant to be intolerant or unfair. She 
died prematurely and made a great gap in my friendships, 
one of the kind which time closes perhaps but never fills. 

I suppose that I then learned to read and write, because 
I have no clear remembrance of a time when I did not pos- 
sess those two accomplishments. I am certain that I was 
taught the rudiments of arithmetic, because such acquisi- 
tion as I effected was painful, both at the moment and in 
recollection. Anything relating to figures or mathematics 
I regarded with a settled hate, both then and afterwards. 
I also remember that I began the study of French, which I 
liked, and I think I recall it chiefly because tj^e teacher, 
Doctor Arnaux, tall, thin, grave, dark, and solemnly polite, 
presented a figure the like of which I had never seen before 
upon my little Boston horizon. These were some of the 
things I learned or which were thrust into me, but of edu- 
cation in its true sense I got nothing except a single sentence 
from Mrs. Parkman: "Use your mind. I do not care what 
you answer if you only use your mind." At the time her 
words seemed to me merely the outcry of a very natural 
irritation, a distinctly hostile utterance, yet in some way 
the phrase clung to my memory, and in years long after I 
came to think that to know how to use one's mind com- 
prises pretty nearly the whole of education. There is, how- 
ever, one recollection connected with this first school, al- 
though very far removed from any idea of tasks and lessons, 



22 EARLY MEMORIES 

which I must record. Mrs. (Fanny) Kemble at that time 
lived much in Massachusetts, where she was warmly admired 
and had many friends, especially among the women of my 
mother's age. One of her closest and most intimate friends 
was Mrs. Parkman, and I remember Mrs. Kemble's coming 
to the school and reading to us. I had forgotten that there 
was another reading at Mr. Ticknor's house for the benefit 
of the children until my old friend Henry Parkman re- 
minded me of it. She read that noblest of old ballads, 
"Chevy Chase," which I recall, and no doubt other poems 
or plays the recollection of which has perished. How she 
looked I cannot now picture to myself, for the first image is 
blotted out by a much later one obtained when I heard her 
read in public on several occasions and when she was an 
elderly woman. What I retain of that earliest time is the 
memory of her deep, melodious voice and a sense which 
lingers with me still that she was an awe-inspiring person- 
age at whom I gazed in round-eyed wonder. 

But Boston and winter — although I loved the heavy 
snow-storms and the coasting and skating — Boston and 
winter and school and what passed for education were not 
only the lesser but the worser part of life. The joy of 
living in its full sense was united indissolubly with the 
summer and the sea. I had something of the sea in 
Boston, for my father was a China merchant, and, after 
the fashion of the merchants of those days, had his office in 
the granite block which stretched down to the end of Com- 
mercial Wharf. His counting-room was at the very end 
in the last division of the block, and from the windows I 
could look out on the ships lying alongside the wharf. They 
were beautiful vessels, American clipper ships in the days 
when our ships of that type were famous throughout the 
world for speed and stanchness. I wandered about over 
their decks, making friends with the captains, the seamen, 
and the ship-keepers, and taking a most absorbing interest in 



EARLIEST MEMORIES : 1850-1860 23 

everything connected with them. They brought me from 
China admirable firecrackers and strange fireworks, fasci- 
nating in appearance, but which I could not "make go" 
at all. From them, too, came bronzes and porcelains 
and pictures and carved ivories, which I was wont to look 
at wonderingly, and ginger and sweetmeats and lychee-nuts 
(then almost unknown here), of which I used to partake 
with keen delight. For the teas and silks which filled the 
holds I cared nothing, but the histoiy and adventures of 
the ships interested me greatly. I was indifferent to those 
which my father had bought and which rejoiced in such 
names as the Alfred Hill and Sarah H. Snow, but I cared enor- 
mously for the others, which he had built and named himself. 
One was the Argonaut, his "luckiest" ship, in which he told 
me I had an interest or share. I still have a stiff picture 
of her painted by a Chinese artist in the Western manner ; 
and a veiy beautiful ship she must have been. Second only 
to the Argonaut in my affections were two named for the 
heroes of one of my father's best-loved books, the Don 
Quixote and the Sancho Panza. Then there were still others, 
crack ships in their day, whose names appealed to my 
imagination — the Kremlin, the Storm King, the Cossack, 
and the Magnet. But over all was the mystery and the 
fascination of the sea, and those who have been born at 
its edge and have fallen under its spell are never happy 
when long parted from the ocean and the ships. Long- 
fellow has given once for all in verse what many a New 
England boy, born by the sea, has felt and, having once 
felt, has never forgotten: 

" I remember the black wharves and the slips, 

And the sea-tides tossing free; 
And Spanish sailors with bearded lips, 
And the beauty and mystery of the ships, 

And the magic of the sea." 



24 EARLY MEMORIES 

Such I know was my feeling, and I can see now the look 
of the wharf and the men and the ships as I gazed at them 
from the window of the counting-room or wandered about 
their decks. 

I am happy to find that I am not alone in my memory 
of the wharves and ships of those early days. In his charm- 
ing book about "Boston New and Old," my friend and con- 
temporary Russell Sullivan says: "Here, at Commercial 
Wharf, too, and at Lewis Wharf, came in the merchantmen. 
The lofts and ground floors of the buildings were stored 
with products of the Indies; midway, sunny counting rooms 
overlooked the water, the loading and discharging vessels. 
There, where the merchants spent their days, the wide, 
comfortable spaces fitted with time honored furniture, with 
paintings of clipper ships upon the walls, had a look of well- 
ordered repose, and, between cargoes, were, indeed, at times 
so quiet that the gentle lap of the harbor-waves could be 
heard against the wooden piers below. There was always 
a fragrance of mingled spices in the air which tranquil dig- 
nity pervaded. They had their rough and tumble days, to 
be sure, when bags of ginger, cases of nutmegs and flat bales 
of dusty palm-leaf swung up from the hold so fast that the 
tally-clerks lost count, confusion reigned and tempers went 
by the board. The troops of small boys who came collect- 
ing foreign postage stamps and the decorative shipping- 
cards of elaborate design which were in vogue, must have 
been a pestering nuisance, yet were civilly endured. Only 
a few ill-natured consignees hung out signs warning off these 
youthful mendicants." 

I remember one product of the Indies discovered by 
Columbus which Mr. Sullivan fails to mention, although it 
was an import from which the youth of the period drew an 
immediate revenue. On India Wharf, and no doubt on 
others, were frequently gathered in serried ranks lying side 



> 



EARLIEST MEMORIES : 1S50-1S60 25 

by side large groups of great hogsheads filled with West 
Indian molasses. Those who came to buy not infrequently 
left the long stick with which they tested the contents stand- 
ing in the bung-hole of the cask. To draw forth this stick 
dripping with molasses was simple, then, regardless of dirt 
and impurities, to run the finger along it and convey the 
finger to the mouth was the work of a moment. It is not 
a form of gluttony which would attract me now, but my 
friends and I enjoyed this black molasses hugely, although 
not even theft could add to its intense and cloying, if dirty, 
sweetness. 

Of the boys who went stamp-collecting I was also one, 
and have no doubt that I was frequently a "pestering nui- 
sance," but it was a fascinating pursuit although rarely 
successful. There were no "philatelists" in those days. I 
doubt whether even Shakespeare's "well-educated infant," 
if he had lived then, could have defined the word. We had 
to get our stamps where we could, from good-natured friends 
and relatives who received foreign letters, by exchange, or 
by purchase from each other. There were wild legends of 
rare stamps having been obtained from the offices of for- 
eign merchants on the wharves, and we wandered about 
asking for them with splendid and seldom-rewarded perse- 
verance, buoyed up by the hope that we should find some 
office where the value of postage-stamps was unknown, and 
where the precious triangles of the Cape of Good Hope, or 
the rare issues of Mauritius or Australia or Java, would be 
poured into our outstretched palms. It only happened 
now and then; the dream seldom came true; but there was 
a lively excitement about these expeditions and the eternal 
charm of treasure-hunting, as well as a sense of adventure 
in prying into forgotten corners and going into all sorts of 
out-of-the-way places, which was very gratifying to boy 
nature. A favorite spot in the quest for stamps was the 



26 EARLY MEMORIES 

rooms of the Missionary Society, which occupied the top 
floor of a house in Pemberton Square. Never by any 
chance did we get anything there. The gentlemen engaged 
in converting the heathen had, I think, an accurate concep- 
tion of the value of the stamps affixed to letters coming from 
the distant islands with which they corresponded. But we 
were repaid for our toilsome ascent of several flights of 
stairs by the little museum maintained by the society. It 
was a Polynesian collection — feather capes, war-clubs, 
spears, hideous idols, and endless curiosities which rejoiced 
our hearts. I hope that collection has been preserved, and 
if I knew where it was I would go to see it even if I was 
compelled to take an elevator to ascend to its resting-place. 

I can see, too, in the backward glance at the old wharves 
and counting-rooms, that which begot them, the shipyard 
at Medford, long since departed, and Mr. Lapham, the 
ship-builder, and the vessels on the stocks. It was one of 
the most exciting joys of my life to drive out to Medford 
with my father and stroll about the shipyard while he in- 
spected the ship in process of construction. I am far from 
decrying steel and iron, but for mere grace and beauty the 
old clipper ship from the day she spread her wings and set 
out under full sail can never be approached by anything 
made of metal with smoking chimneys and military masts. 

I have drifted with the ships far away from the summers 
of my boyhood, but the mention of my drives with my 
father to Medford brings me naturally back to them, be- 
cause in the spring it was his habit on Sunday, the one day 
he had free from business, to drive down to Nahant to see 
our little place and inspect the gardens, in which he took a 
keen interest. There were no Sunday trains in those days, 
and electric cars were still in a remote future, so that the 
only way of reaching the desired spot was to drive. 
Our vehicle was a large buggy. We changed horses 



EARLIEST MEMORIES: 1850-1860 27 

at Lynn, leaving our own horse there to be fed, and 
went on to Nahant with a horse from the livery-stable. 
At Nahant we lunched, bringing our luncheon with us, 
examined the work on the place, and wandered about 
by the edge of the sea and among the closed houses, 
which only took off their shutters and opened their eyes 
when summer came. These empty, shut-up houses gave an 
air of remoteness and solitude to the little peninsula much 
more tangible than if it had been merely uninhabited. To 
a small boy the whole expedition had a taste of adventure 
which was very satisfying. The part, however, which I 
liked most was the drive. My father was the best of com- 
panions. He had that somewhat rare gift of being perfect 
company to a child. He was the kindest and most generous 
of men. I never remember a harsh word from him except 
on one or two occasions, when he spoke to me sternly be- 
cause he thought I was not telling the truth or was exhibiting 
either physical or moral timidity. He was a man of great 
courage, entirely fearless, and was said to have had a high 
temper, but although I realized his courage I never knew 
that he had a temper until one night, when, as we were 
going to the theatre, at a dark place on the Common, two 
men pushed into us; there were words, I saw something 
glitter in one man's hand, and then he was knocked down 
in the snow by my father, who merely said as we passed on: 
"I think that fellow had a knife." My confidence in my 
father was so absolute that at the moment the whole affair 
appeared to be altogether commonplace and natural. As 
I look back upon it now it does not seem quite so simple. 
There had been a storm and the weather was just clearing. 
I can see the shine of the distant gaslight on the new-fallen 
snow, the sudden collision of the two men with my father, 
then one of them on his back in the white drift with some- 
thing glittering in his hand. Then we were walking quietly 



28 EARLY MEMORIES 

along again, and I have no recollection of either fright or 
excitement. My faith in my father was too great to admit 
such emotions. Perhaps I shall be pardoned if I say a few 
words here about him, for he filled a dominant place in my 
earliest years. He was open-handed and generous in the 
highest degree to the poor, to all who were connected with 
him, to any one whom he could help. When the war came 
he was unable to go, for he was not only too old, which he 
would not admit, but he had injured his knee in a fall from 
his horse, could not walk freely and rode with difficulty. 
But he was an intensely loyal man and gave to the support 
of the war in every way. It was the habit to subscribe 
money to equip regiments. John C. Ropes, afterwards an 
eminent lawyer and distinguished military historian, raised 
a great deal of money for this purpose. He told me that 
my father always gave, and on one occasion when there was 
some especial need my father handed him a check signed in 
blank and told him to fill it up as he pleased. Mr. Ropes 
said it was the only blank, signed check ever given to him. 
My father enjoyed above all things the power of giving. 
He was overwhelmed, overburdened with business cares, 
winch broke him down and caused his premature death. 
My mother begged him to retire, as he had an ample fortune 
for those days, but his reply was: "If I retire and live on a 
fixed income I shall not be able to give as I do now, and I 
want to be able to give without stopping to think about it." 
But it was not his generosity, although he was continu- 
ally giving to me, which made those Sunday drives so fas- 
cinating. It was his companionship. To the simple, short, 
and familiar journey he contrived to impart a charm and 
an interest which never failed in their attraction to the small 
boy who sat beside him. The little incidents of the road 
assumed the proportions of adventures, illuminated by the 
jokes they provoked and the riddles and conundrums they 



EARLIEST MEMORIES: 1850-1860 29 

suggested, which, unlike a true Yankee, I was very slow in 
guessing. Like most men of well-balanced minds, my father 
had his pet superstition — the very ancient one of picking up 
a horseshoe as the bringer of good luck. I am inclined to 
think that he cultivated the superstition for my benefit, 
because keeping a lookout and occasionally seeing and 
gathering in a horseshoe gave an added excitement to the 
drive, and brought the precious sensation, when fortune 
favored us, of "treasure-trove." The propensity thus ac- 
quired I have both resisted and indulged all my life. Then 
we would speculate about the horse we should get at Lynn 
when we changed, and on our arrival there the business of 
changing horses and the conversation with Mr. Goldthwaite, 
the proprietor, were to me an unending source of pleasure 
and made me think that I was having the same experiences 
as those which befell Mr. Pickwick in his immortal travels 
in stage-coaches. My father also talked freely to me and 
we held long conversations. He talked to me about his 
ships, and about the place at Nahant, and about his cotton- 
mill, and about politics, and above all, he used to repeat 
poetry to me, not only nonsense jingles, or the simple 
rhymes of the school-room, or the verses of Cowper and Mrs. 
Hemans, of Campbell and Southey, but he would recite to 
me long passages from Scott and Gray, and above all from 
his two favorite poets, Shakespeare and Pope, a queer 
combination. I then first heard and learned the noble and 
beautiful verses of the "Elegy in a Country Churchyard," 
but my father's favorite among Gray's poems seems to 
have been for some unfathomable reason "The Bard." So 
deeply were its lines impressed upon me as a child, that to 
this day I cannot repeat 

" Ruin seize thee, ruthless King, 
Confusion on thy banners wait!" 



30 EARLY MEMORIES 

without feeling the thrill which the words gave me when a 
little boy. I cannot remember the time when I did not 
know the "Universal Prayer," or when I could not recite 
"The stag at eve had drunk his fill," and 

" Awake, my St. John, leave all meaner things 
To low Ambition and the pride of kings." 

My idea of what the last poem meant was as vague as my 
knowledge of Bolingbroke, but the swing and the ring of 
the verses greatly caught my fancy. Then, too, it was that 
there came to me the first intimation of the existence of 
Homer by hearing that 

"Aurora now, fair daughter of the dawn, 
Sprinkled with rosy light the dewy lawn," 

and that heroes called Achilles and Hector and Ulysses had 
many fights and adventures, all described in the like formal 
and sonorous fashion. It was in this way that I acquired an 
affection for Pope's rolling and balanced lines, which was 
found quite odd when I grew up, because Queen Anne's 
poet had long been out of fashion. My father was fond 
of books and liked to talk of them to me, young as I was, 
and my own reading took, of course, the line of my father's 
fancies. He was very fond of Cervantes, and I early became 
familiar with our illustrated copy of "Don Quixote," pored 
over the pictures and read all that I could understand. He 
was a lover of Scott, and in my tenth year I read all the 
Waverley Novels through from beginning to end. I have 
repeated the performance more than once since, but the 
joy of that first reading can never be felt again. The 
pleasure of living in that other world filled with adventure 
and with fascinating people was beyond description. I 
understand that Scott is now no longer read and that the 



EARLIEST MEMORIES: 1850-1860 31 

young and wise regard him as a poor creature. If tins be 
true, the loss is the world's and the present generation's, and 

" Out of the day and night 
A joy has taken flight." 

In the same way I was led to an early admiration of Macau- 
lay and to a far earlier reading of Hawthorne, Dickens, and 
"Robinson Crusoe." I am inclined to think, as I set down 
the names of these books, which I turned to because my 
father talked about them, that his tastes were conservative, 
that he was not appealed to by the romantic or transcen- 
dental movement going on about him, and that, apart from 
Shakespeare, his particular adoration, he was very eighteenth 
century in his tastes. I am confirmed in this by the fact 
that among his books, and he had many, there was a par- 
ticularly handsome and very complete set of Horace Wal- 
pole, for whom he seems to have had a peculiar affection. 
I am afraid that what I have just written will give the im- 
pression that I must have had the most precocious literary 
tastes, which was not at all the case. These books I have 
mentioned I was led to read in part at least by hearing my 
father talk of them, and Scott was purely voluntary read- 
ing on my part, as was likewise the case with "Peter Sim- 
ple" and "Midshipman Easy"— a very great work. But I 
also devoured eagerly all the children's books of the time, 
especially fairy tales, for which I had an inexhaustible appe- 
tite. I lovingly perused all the works of Jacob Abbott, as 
well as "Sandford and Merton," one of the most preposter- 
ous books ever written, but which had an undoubted charm 
that I find it hard to explain. I was familiar with the poems 
of Jane Taylor, and accepted as perfectly natural the fero- 
cious punishments therein meted out to youthful trans- 
gressors. The extremely humorous side of those poems, 
quite unintended by the authoress, has been, I may add, a 



32 EARLY MEMORIES 

source of real pleasure to me all my life, as I have been able 
to recall those jingling verses better than many more valu- 
able things. I also read all Miss Edgeworth's writings — 
"Parents' Assistant," "Frank," "Harry and Lucy," and 
" Rosamond and the Purple Jar." At that time the intol- 
erable didacticism of the stories did not bore me, nor did I 
have the satisfaction of appreciating the brutal immorality 
of such persons as Rosamond's mother in her treatment of 
her luckless and deceived offspring. 

But I have spent a long time in getting to Nahant and 
my summers there. I have drifted away on the sea of litera- 
ture as I did before on the clipper ships. Neither perhaps 
is so very distant, for Nahant has been much connected 
with literature, and from her bold headlands she has watched 
"the stately ships go on to their haven under the hill" from 
the days of the long, low boats of the Vikings to the huge 
steamships throbbing and smoking as they come up out of 
the ocean or start forth to Europe. A rock-bound peninsula 
of singular beauty thrust out into the sea between Cape 
Cod and Cape Ann, the home from the early part of the 
seventeenth century of a few fishermen and farmers, Nahant 
at the beginning of the nineteenth century began to draw 
from Boston people who sought for life out of doors, by its 
fine sea air and by the chance for fishing and shooting. In 
the early twenties gentlemen from Boston built a stone 
hotel on the extreme point of the peninsula. Cottages fol- 
lowed, built here and there on the cliffs and headlands, and 
the place was fairly launched as a summer resort. It be- 
came well known, sharing with Newport the distinction of 
being one of the first and most famous of New England 
watering-places. Willis, and later Curtis, described it in 
prose and Whittier pictured its beauties in verse. It finds 
a place in more than one of Longfellow's poems, for he 
lived there always in summer; and Emerson gave it a stanza: 



EARLIEST MEMORIES: 1850-1860 33 

'All day the waves assailed the rock, 
I heard the church-bell chime, 
The sea-beat scorns the minster clock 
And breaks the glass of time." 



Prescott and Agassiz made their homes at Nahant in sum- 
mer, and Motley and Sumner came there every year. 
Then Mr. Paran Stevens, forerunner of the promoters and 
combiners of a later day, cast his eyes upon it and deter- 
mined that he could make it a great watering-place like 
Newport, a destiny for which Nahant was too small and 
altogether unsuited. But this experiment was in full tide 
when my earliest memory begins. The picturesque stone 
hotel had given way to a huge wooden barrack containing 
hundreds of rooms, ugly, tasteless, with no quality but size. 
A telegraph line was run to Lynn, "hops," concerts, and 
balls were of frequent occurrence, and various attractions 
were generously furnished. After the hotel had practically 
failed and was on the eve of extinction, in 1860, an imitator 
of Blondin named John Denver came to Nahant, and I re- 
member him well wheeling a man over a tight-rope stretched 
high across one of the coves which indented the shore. 
There was at the outset, however, a brief period of gayety 
and success, the hotel was full, and fashion seemed to justify 
the anticipation of Mr. Stevens. Its fame indeed even 
travelled across the ocean. On September 7, 1858, Henry 
Greville writes in his diary : " An amusing letter from Fanny 
Kemble, dated Nahant, U. S. (a favorite sea-bathing place 
near Boston), received to-day, says: 'How you would open 
your eyes and stop your ears if you were here! This enor- 
mous house is filled with American women, one prettier than 
the other, who look like fairies, dress like duchesses or femmes 
entretenues, behave like housemaids and scream like pea- 
cocks.' " The glimpse through English eyes is not flatter- 



34 EARLY MEMORIES 

ing, but it is vivid and interesting, perhaps not without 
value even now. 

So far as my own knowledge is concerned I remember 
only dimly that the Olympians of the family used to go to 
the hotel for various entertainments, that there was music, 
and that I was taken there once to see Signor Blitz (why 
Signor?) and his trained canaries. The only other recollec- 
tion connected with the hotel in its brief hour of splendor is 
of the first diplomatist I ever saw. I have met many since 
those days, some most interesting men, but not infrequently 
I have found them, especially when they were what is called 
"trained," quite arid and unprofitable. Lord Napier, min- 
ister from England to the United States in 1857, was very 
distinctly of the former and most interesting class. He 
brought letters to my father, and he and Lady Napier dined 
often at our house and drove with my mother. A boy of 
seven notes not at all the appearance of persons so old as 
to be friends of his parents, but I have been told since that 
Lady Napier was both charming and handsome. An old 
photograph which lies before me, despite its imperfections, 
certainly justifies the latter adjective. There were also 
two Napier boys, who made a far stronger impression upon 
my mind than did their parents. I remember playing and 
fraternizing with them very cheerfully, although I had a 
wholly vague, but none the less deep-rooted, hostility to 
England. This feeling was traditional and in the air, but 
I am sure that I derived mine from my father. He had 
been in England several times when a young man. I have 
his passport, issued to him by Governor White, of Louisiana, 
the father of my friend, the present chief justice of the 
United States. My father then lived in Louisiana, where he 
was engaged in business, but the governor of a State as a 
source for passports curiously illustrates the alteration in 
the power and position of the States since the early thirties. 



EARLIEST MEMORIES: 1850-1860 35 

He had enjoyed his visits to England, where he was very 
kindly welcomed by his uncle and cousins, and I never heard 
him speak harshly of any one whom he met. Nevertheless, 
he resented deeply the attitude and policy of England toward 
this country, as well as the contemptuous abuse heaped upon 
us by her writers, and this resentment became more in- 
tense when England's feeling toward us was revealed by her 
conduct at the beginning of the Civil War. But although 
my opinions were strong and sound as to Great Britain, I 
played cheerfully and contentedly with the sons of the 
minister and found them excellent companions. 

The passing glamour of the big hotel, however, was only 
an incident in the first summers which I remember. It 
was Nahant itself that I cared for. Many, many years 
afterward Senator Hoar said of me and to me in a speech at 
Clark University, that I had suffered from one serious mis- 
fortune — I had not been brought up in the country. I told 
him after the speech-making was over that I had one great 
compensation in being brought up by the sea, and he ad- 
mitted the truth of what I said as a fact which he had for- 
gotten. The love of the sea which a child acquires who has 
been reared at its very edge deepens through life, and 
nothing can ever replace it. I played upon the beaches and 
climbed about among the rocks; I loved the sea smiling 
and beautiful in the midsummer heats, and I loved it even 
more in the great gales of the autumn, when the huge waves 
broke over the cliffs and ledges, filling me with interest and 
excitement as I watched them by the hour together. 

Nahant not only meant the sea and summer and out-of- 
door life, but there was no school there, and, instead of 
lessons, I learned to swim and in time to row and sail a boat, 
accomplishments really worth having and one of the rare 
portions of my education which have been of use and pleas- 
ure to me my whole life through. There was, too, a certain 



36 EARLY MEMORIES 

enchantment about the place — the mystery and magic of 
the sea, I suppose — and such dreams and imaginings as I 
had were all connected with Nahant and not with Boston. 
It is said that Robert Louis Stevenson once declaring that 
"every child hunted for buried treasure," Henry James re- 
plied "that he never had," to which Stevenson made the 
obvious answer: "Then you have never been a child." I 
was not at all imaginative, but I constructed an elaborate 
romance of treasure hidden at Nahant. Little as I knew it 
then, I was in a region peculiarly adapted for such dreams. 
Captain Kidd and other pirates of the seventeenth and 
eighteenth centuries, but especially Captain Kidd, are popu- 
larly believed to have buried treasure all along the New Eng- 
land coast. As a matter of fact, they probably concealed 
some of their plunder at various points, for little deposits 
have been found here and there. The belief, however, was 
magnificent and wide-spread, even if the treasure was small, 
scattered, and uncertain. Not far from where I lived, al- 
though I never heard of it until much later, at a place called 
Dungeon Rock, in the Lynn Woods, a worthy family, under 
the direction of mediums and spirits, slowly and painfully, 
with hammer and chisel, drove a tunnel into the solid rock 
in search of a cave where an Indian princess, an Indian 
chief, and sundiy pirates had been imprisoned with all 
their treasures by a landslide or earthquake, of which geology, 
differing with the spirits, gave no indication. The work of 
these poor people afterward became an attraction to sight- 
seers, and they earned a living by the fees they received for 
exhibiting the labors of their wasted lives. 

I also got a glimpse of the Captain Kidd belief many 
years later. One summer in the eighties a good-looking 
elderly man came to me and asked permission to dig on my 
place at Nahant, near East Point, just by the edge of the 
cliff. He said that the spirits had told him precisely where 



EARLIEST MEMORIES: 1850-1860 37 

the treasure was buried in large pots packed in a great chest. 
Mindful of my own early visions, I gave him the required 
permission, but after his excavation had reached such a 
size that it began to threaten serious damage I told him to 
stop and sent him away. He went obediently, but came 
back at night secretly and dug more and deeper, enlarging 
the hole to the serious distress of my gardener, and naturally 
finding nothing. He was a fine-looking, sturdy man who 
had worked all his life as a bridge-builder and contractor, 
and his hard-earned savings were being absorbed by crafty 
mediums who were encouraging him in his search for buried 
treasure. 

I have strayed far from my own early imaginings, 
which were as innocent of any knowledge of Kidd and 
seventeenth-century buccaneers as they were of spiritual 
manifestations and designing mediums. Mine was simply 
the boy's dream of buried treasure. I made up my mind 
that, on the side of one of the cliffs near the house where I 
then lived, there was a cave which had been closed up by the 
fall of a rock suggested by a long crack and a projecting shelf. 
I fixed the place in my memory by slipping there one day 
when I was pounding the rock, and as I fell I brought my 
teeth sharply together, biting clean through my tongue, an 
incident as real as my cave was imaginary and a good deal 
more painful. But although I made no impression on the 
hard surface of the rock, I pictured the cave in my 
mind and fitted it up and filled it with treasure, greatly to 
my own satisfaction. I became finally so pleased with my 
invention that I confided an account of it to my companion 
and contemporary, Sturgis Bigelow, who has reminded me 
that I peopled the cave not with every-day pirates, but with 
the leading characters in the "White Chief," a thrilling 
work by our favorite novelist, Mayne Reid. Bigelow was 
so interested that I gave him to understand that I had seen 



38 EARLY MEMORIES 

all these wonders, and I produced an old and rusty shot- 
gun which I had found in the garret as something which I 
had brought from the cave. He was duly impressed, so 
much so indeed that he told his father and then informed 
me that his father said that there was no such cave and that 
the gun had probably belonged to my grandfather. What 
defence I made I do not remember, but this unpleasant 
scepticism not only impaired my reputation for truth, but also 
wrecked my own belief, and I do not recall that I sought 
further to develop my cave, which was a loss I have never 
ceased to deplore. My only other attempt to carry out my 
dreams of buried treasure had an equally unfortunate end- 
ing. Russell Sullivan, Russell Gray, and I and one or two 
other boys put some of our hard-gotten quarters and half- 
dollars in a small box and buried it deeply in a sand-bank 
which ran along the edge of the marshes where Arlington 
Street now is. Then from time to time we would go secretly 
and mysteriously and dig up the box and examine it. The 
pleasure of this performance is almost as hard to explain as 
that of Stevenson's "Lantern Bearers," but I can testify 
that it was quite as real and quite as exciting. One sad day, 
however, we found that our box had been broken open and 
rifled. Sullivan and I, quite unjustly I think, suspected 
one of our fellow treasure-hiders and treated him with 
marked coolness. I am inclined to believe that some more 
practical treasure-seeker from the "South Cove" had ob- 
served our movements and had profited accordingly. But 
in any event this melancholy experience terminated my 
effort to acquire or to pretend to acquire buried treasure. 



CHAPTER III 

THE "OLYMPIANS": 1850-1860 

These memories of my first ten years all melt together. 
I cannot pick them apart and date them, as other more 
fortunate writers of reminiscences seem able to do. I can 
only give them in mass as they arise before me out of the 
dead years. But some of the figures of that time stand 
forth very clearly before my mental vision, both those 
who made my little world and those whom I afterward 
knew to be of importance in the larger world of men 
and whom I still distinguish salient and defined despite 
the uncertain and fluctuating lights of one's earlier mem- 
ories. 

I have already spoken of my father, who was so much to 
me as companion and friend. In the little home world my 
mother filled the largest place, and for fifty years her devo- 
tion, affection, and sympathy never failed me. She was a 
clever, high-minded, high-spirited woman, very well edu- 
cated according to the standards of Boston in the thirties, 
and had made a long tour with her family through Europe 
in 1837, something not so common at that time as it is now. 
She was a great reader, and from my earliest years is asso- 
ciated in my mind with reading and a love of books. It was 
from her that I first heard of Byron and Shelley. She was 
one of the early admirers of Browning in the days before 
his popularity, and it was to her that I owe my first acquaint- 

39 



40 EARLY MEMORIES 

ance with the poet, who among all those near my own time 
or contemporary with it, during a long period, meant most 
to me. My only sister was seven years older than I, a great 
gap when one is under ten, but I was extremely fond of her 
as she was of me. I looked up to her, of course, and felt 
bitterly at times her very natural preference for older so- 
ciety than mine, but I rejoiced exceedingly whenever I could 
be with her. 

Last but by no means least in the household was my 
grandfather, Henry Cabot, for whom I was named. He 
was over seventy when I first recall him clearly; a tall, erect, 
very fine-looking man who gave no impression of age or 
feebleness. He went to his club (the old Temple Club) 
and down-town every day, although he had no business, 
having long since retired from the bar, and he was a zealous 
theatre-goer. When not at the theatre he was always at 
home in the evenings and used to sit up very late, reading, 
as I was told. He certainly got up late in the morning and 
I seldom saw him without a book. It seemed to me as if 
he knew everybody and that everybody knew him. His 
friends were constantly coming to see him. I thought at 
the time that they were all of his age, which I regarded as 
enormous. I learned later that some of them were young 
men, the fact being that he was a very agreeable and charm- 
ing man who attracted both young and old. He had, as I 
look back on it, most perfect manners, and left the reputa- 
tion of an excellent talker, although of that I could not 
judge. He was always very kind to me, but I looked up to 
him with awe, for he impressed me with an air of distinc- 
tion which I could not have defined then, but which I fully 
. realize now. I do not know why I had that feeling of awe, 
because he was always most gentle in his manner, and as 
he had a way, if I asked him for money, of pulling out a 
handful of change and letting me take my choice among 



THE "OLYMPIANS": 1850-1860 41 

the coins I felt a peculiar affection for a person addicted 
to a method of giving quite unexampled in my experience. 
I used to try his patience, I fear, by urging him to tell me 
how he hid under the sideboard and watched Washington 
at breakfast with his father when the President stopped at 
my great-grandfather's house in Beverly, on his journey 
through New England in 1789. 

Many years afterward there came to me in a curious 
way a written reminder of this little incident which had 
strangely enough escaped destruction. When I wrote my 
memoir of George Cabot in 1876 I went carefully through 
the Washington papers in the State Department and took 
copies of all the correspondence between Washington and 
Mr. Cabot. I did not find anything relating to the Beverly 
visit, nor indeed was there any reason why I should have 
found anything. Some fifteen years later my friend, 
William Endicott, then in the Department of Justice, was 
directed to examine all the papers in the archives rela- 
ting to the acquisition of the District of Columbia and the 
laying out of the city of Washington, in order to settle 
some question which had arisen in regard to the title to the 
Potomac flats. There was an immense mass of papers, 
including many letters from Washington, all official and all 
relating to the establishment of the Federal city. Yet in 
this unlikely company Mr. Endicott discovered my great- 
grandfather's letter inviting Washington to stop at his 
house in Beverly. Washington preserved everything in 
the way of correspondence, but how tins little note from 
a friend had straved into such a collection has never been 
explained. I will give it here because it is connected with 
my story and also because it seems to me to have the 
pleasant grace of the elder day when Horace Walpole was 
writing letters and Gibbon was telling the story of the 
Roman Empire. 



42 EARLY MEMORIES 

Beverly, 
October 24, 1789. 

Sir: The public papers having announced "that the President 
of the United States is on his way to Portsmouth in New Hamp- 
shire," it immediately occurred to me that your route would be 
through this village, and that you might find it convenient to 
stop here and take a little rest: should this prove to be the 
case, permit me, Sir, to hope for your acceptance of such accomoda- 
tion and refreshment as can be furnished in my humble dwelling, 
where two or three beds would be at your disposal. 

I am fully aware that by indulging this hope I expose myself 
to the imputation of vanity as well as ambition and therefore 
should hardly dare to have my conduct tried by the cool maxims 
of the head alone, but would rather refer it to the dictates of my 
heart, which, in the most affecting concerns of life, I believe to be 
a sure guide to what is right. 

I have the honor, Sir, to be with sentiments of the most pro- 
found respect your devoted and most obedient servant 

George Cabot 

The President of the United States 

I have always liked since to think, as I have recalled 
this trifling anecdote, that I have known and talked with 
some one who had seen Washington. But this was the only 
incident of the past I ever extracted from my grandfather. 
I used to importune him to tell me stories of the distant 
time when he was a boy and especially all about his father. 
I remember well his kindly refusal and his then adding: 
" My boy, we do not talk about family in this country. It 
is enough for you to know that your grandfather is an 
honest man." It is a regret to me now that I never could 
get more from him, for he had seen much of the world and 
had known many interesting people. He entered Harvard 
in the class of 1800, but became involved in one of the ab- 
surd outbreaks common in those days and known as college 
rebellions, and did not graduate. He was at Cambridge 
long enough, however, to be a member of the Porcellian 



THE "OLYMPIANS": 1850-1860 43 

Club, and I remember how glad I was to find his name on 
the list when I became a member of the club myself, more 
than seventy years later. Washington Allston was in the 
same class, and my grandfather kept up his friendship with 
him always. 

Mr. Cabot was also a lifelong friend of Daniel Webster, 
personally as well as politically. They were both fond of 
gun and rod, and I have a long letter from Webster telling 
my grandfather about a day's fishing and describing the 
trout he had caught, which is I think worth giving here 
for the glimpse that it affords of the sport of many years 
ago: 

Sandwich, June 4, 
Saturday mor'g 
6 o'clock 

Dear Sir: I send you eight or nine brook trout, which I 
took yesterday, in that chief of all brooks, Mashpee. I made a 
long day of it, and with good success, for me. John was with me, 
full of good advice, but did not fish — nor carry a rod. 

I took 20 trouts, all weighing 17 11) 12 oz. 

The largest (you have him) weighed at Crokers . . 2 " 4 " 

The 5 largest 3 " 5 " 

The eight largest 11 " 8 " 



I got these by following your advice; that is, by careful & 
thorough fishing of the difficult places, which others do not fish. 
The brook is fished, nearly every day. I entered it, not so high up 
as we sometime do, between 7 & 8 o'clock, & at 12 was hardly 
more than half way down to the meeting-house path. You see 
I did not hurry. The day did not hold out to fish the whole 
brook properly. The largest trout I took at 3 p. m. (you see I 
am precise) below the meeting-house, under a bush on the right 
bank, two or three rods below the large beeches. It is singular, 
that in the whole day, I did not take two trouts out of the same 
hole. I found both ends, or parts of the Brook about equally 
productive. Small fish not plenty, in either. So many hooks 



44 EARLY MEMORIES 

get everything which is not hid away in the manner large trouts 
take care of themselves. I hooked one, which I suppose to be 
larger than any which I took, as he broke my line, by fair pulling, 
after I had pulled him out of his den, & was playing him in fair 
open water. 

Of what I send you, I pray you keep what you wish yourself, 
send three to Mr. Ticknor, & three to Dr. Warren; or two of the 
larger ones, to each will perhaps be enough — & if there be any 
left, there is Mr. Callender & Mr. Blake, & Mr. Davis, either of 
them not "averse to fish." Pray let Mr. Davis see them — es- 
pecially the large one — As he promised to come, & fell back, I 
desire to excite his regrets. I hope you will have the large one 
on your own table. 

The day was fine — not another hook in the Brook. John 
steady as a judge — and everything else exactly right. I never, 
on the whole, had so agreeable a day's fishing tho' the result, 
in pounds or numbers, is not great; — nor ever expect such an- 
other. 

Please preserve this letter; but rehearse not these particulars 
to the uninitiated. 

I think the Limerick not the best hook. Whether it pricks too 
soon, or for what other reason, I found or thought I found the fish 
more likely to let go his hold, from this, than from the old fashioned 
hook. Yrs. 

D. Webster. 

H. Cabot, Esq. 

I cannot close these imperfect recollections of my grand- 
father without a word as to his only sister, Elizabeth, the 
widow of Doctor Kirkland, sometime president of Harvard 
College. She died in 1852, so that I have no memory of her, 
but she was a remarkable woman — clever, given, I fear, to 
speaking sharply, with more attention sometimes to wit than 
to the feeling of others, possessed of great strength of char- 
acter and entire courage both in conduct and opinion. She 
married Doctor Kirkland after her father's death, and when 
her husband resigned the presidency of the college they went 
abroad in 1829. They travelled widely, going to Syria and 



THE "OLYMPIANS": 1850-1860 45 

Egyp^ where she was the first of American women certainly 
to ascend the Great Pyramid. They saw many interesting 
people; I have letters to them from Lord Jeffrey, Lord Hol- 
land, James Martineau, and others in England. Some years 
since I published a selection from Mrs. Kirkland's letters in 
the "Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society." 
They give an interesting picture of travel in Europe in 1829 - 
31. Childless herself, she centred her love and hopes 
upon my uncle, George Cabot, and when he died, in 1850, 
she transferred her affection, at once intense and concen- 
trated, to me. I was taken every day to see her in her 
apartments in Summer Street, not far from where we lived, 
and I have been told that I returned her affection as strongly 
as was possible for a little child. When she came to die she 
ordered every one to leave the room, as she said that she 
wished to die alone. I could not be persuaded to pass the 
house afterwards until I was permitted to go through her 
rooms and satisfy myself that she was gone away, "all 
gone," as I then expressed it. Mrs. Kirkland is not even 
a dim memory to me now, but as I recall those early days 
I cannot pass by in silence one who gave to me at the dawn 
of life so much love and care. 

Among the people who were constantly at the house I 
well remember Charles Sumner. He was the friend of my 
grandfather and of my father, too. He came frequently to 
dinner when he was at home and passed several weeks with 
us always at Nahant, a habit which he maintained until his 
death. But in those first ten years he is only a figure in 
memory — tall, solemn, impressive, and looked at by me 
with distant awe. He is vivid to me in that period upon 
only one occasion, and then he stands out on the back- 
ground of memory very sharply indeed. It was not long 
after Preston Brooks's attack upon him in the Senate cham- 
ber. Brooks, as is well known, came up to Sumner sitting 



46 EARLY MEMORIES 

at his desk, with his knees under it, and beat him over the 
head with a loaded cane, while other Southerners stood about 
ready to prevent interference. Sumner struggled to his 
feet, tearing the desk from its fastenings, tried to seize his 
assailant, and fell senseless. The brutality of the deed was 
only equalled by its thorough cowardice. To come sud- 
denly upon a defenceless man and beat him over the head 
with a loaded cane while friends stand about to prevent 
interference requires a courage about on a level with that 
displayed by a boy who tears off the legs and wings of a fly. 
Yet this performance was lauded throughout the South as 
not only proper but gallant. The South was full of brave 
men, but slavery had so perverted them that they could 
applaud this cowardly and savage deed. 

In the North the assault excited deep indignation. 
Anson Burlingame, then a member of Congress from Massa- 
chusetts, one of the most brilliant of the younger leaders in 
the anti-slavery movement, conspicuous alike for courage 
and eloquence, denounced the deed of Brooks in fitting lan- 
guage. Speaking in the House of Representatives on June 
21, 1856, he said: 

". . . Sir, the act was brief, and my comments on it 
shall be brief also. I denounce it in the name of the Con- 
stitution it violated. I denounce it in the name of the sov- 
ereignty of Massachusetts, which was stricken down by the 
blow. I denounce it in the name of civilization which it 
outraged. I denounce it in the name of humanity. I de- 
nounce it in the name of that fair play which bullies and 
prize-fighters respect. What! strike a man when he is 
pinioned — when he cannot respond to a blow! Call you 
that chivalry? In what code of honor did you get your 
authority for that?" 

Thereupon Brooks, who was also a member of the House, 
challenged him. Burlingame accepted the challenge, named 



THE "OLYMPIANS": 1850-1860 47 

rifles as the weapons, and an island in the Niagara River 
outside the jurisdiction of the United States as the place of 
meeting. Brooks, who apparently had no love for arms of 
precision or an undisturbed meeting, declined, alleging that 
he could not pass safely through the Northern States. This 
refusal was as characteristic as the assault. He died not 
long afterwards. It must be admitted, however, that 
Brooks achieved the success which he no doubt sought, for 
he secured a place in history just as Ravaillac and Felton 
and Bellingham had done before, and as Wilkes Booth did 
not long afterwards. A place in history indeed is always 
to be had if a man will go deep enough into infamy. In this 
way Brooks remains, "a noteless blot on a remembered 
name.." His assault upon Sumner roused the fighting 
spirit of the North, and was one of the potent causes of the 
war, so that the South had good cause to rue the hunting 
of that day. 

My friend, Mr. J. M. Cochran, of Southbridge (Massa- 
chusetts), with whom I had the pleasure of serving in the 
legislature in 1880 — my first session — has kindly sent me 
the following verses, which will illustrate the feeling of 
the North at that moment. I find that curiously enough 
they were written by William Cullen Bryant, and are 
given with four others in Godwin's Life. 

"To Canada Brooks was asked to go 
To waste of powder a pound or so, 
He sighed, as he answered, ' No; No; No; 
They might take my life on the way, you know, 
For I am afraid, afraid, afraid, 
Bully Brooks is afraid.' 

" ' Beyond New York in every car 
They keep a supply of feathers and tar, 
And they put them on with an iron bar, 
I should be smothered before I got far, 
And I am afraid, afraid, afraid, — 
Bully Brooks is afraid.' " 



48 EARLY MEMORIES 

Very characteristic was Sumner's revenge, which he took 
first in the midst of the war and again years afterwards when 
the cause in which he had suffered and to which he had 
given his life was triumphant, when slavery had perished and 
the South was beaten and crushed. On May 8, 1862, he 
offered a resolution declaring it inexpedient to place upon the 
regimental flags the names of victories won over our fellow 
citizens. Three years later he opposed placing in the Cap- 
itol "any picture of a victory in battle with our own fellow 
citizens." In 1873 he introduced a resolution to remove the 
names of battles with our fellow citizens from the Army 
Register and the regimental flags. He wished, he said, to 
obliterate all trophies and monuments of civil war. He was 
far ahead of his time. The bitterness of the strife was still 
undiminished, and his own legislature in Massachusetts cen- 
sured his action. But, looking into the future, Sumner had 
as little sympathy with the hatreds bred by the war as 
he would feel to-day with the false sentimentality which 
would have the government at its own expense erect monu- 
ments to the men who tried to destroy it, and draw no 
distinction between those who saved the Union and those 
who fought to tear it asunder. When he died a distin- 
guished Southerner, Mr. Justice Lamar, eulogized him in a 
speech that startled the country, which then learned from 
the lips of a former foe what generosity of soul and largeness 
of mind had been shown by the victim of Brooks's brutality 
when he stood forward first of all to plead for a true recon- 
ciliation between the people of the States so recently at war. 

Of all the details of the Brooks assault and of its deep 
significance I knew nothing at the time. My memory is 
merely that one afternoon my father took me to the State 
House, to the point which was then the corner of Mount 
Vernon and Beacon Streets. He lifted me up and placed 
me on the coping of the terrace wall so that I could look 



THE "OLYMPIANS": 1850-1860 49 

over the heads of those about us. Thence I saw a crowd 
stretching far away and filling the streets in every direction. 
Presently an open carriage drove up with some gentlemen 
seated in it and stopped near the spot where I was placed. 
Then a tall man, who I knew was Mr. Sumner, stood up in 
the carriage, and at the sight of him a shout rose from that 
crowd the like of which I have never heard since, and I have 
heard, in the course of my life, many crowds, and some mobs, 
cheer and yell. Then memoiy drops the curtain and I re- 
member no more. In after-years I spoke of this recollection 
many times, both to my family and to others, but nobody 
seemed to recall the incident, and I began to think that it 
was all a trick of memory, which is so fond of tricks. At 
last Mr. Pierce's biography appeared, and there at the 
proper point appeared an account of the scene which I re- 
membered. Years afterwards I found among my mother's 
papers a copy of the Boston Atlas for Tuesday, November 4, 
1856. In that veracious chronicle I read that Mr. Sumner 
had passed the previous Sunday at the house of Mr. Law- 
rence in Brookline. The next day he drove to the Roxbury 
line, where he was received by the mayor and Mr. Quincy. 
There the procession was formed and marched to the State 
House. Then the reporter continues: "The scene at the 
State House was beyond description. The area in front, 
the long range of steps leading to the capitol, the capitol 
itself, the streets in the vicinity, the houses, even to the 
roofs, were packed with human beings. The assembled 
thousands greeted him with long-continued cheering." Of 
what followed, according to the newspaper, such as a speech 
by the governor and the like suitable performances, I re- 
member nothing. But I can still see the tall figure stand- 
ing up in the carriage ; I can still hear the shout of the crowd, 
and I know now why that cheering, as the Atlas called it, 
branded itself on my young memory. It was the note of 
fierceness in it, of deep-seated anger, the cry for vengeance 



50 EARLY MEMORIES 

of a people who had been insulted, outraged, and wronged. 
It would have been well for the South if that scene and 
sound had made the same impression upon the Southern 
people which it made upon the boy of six, although I 
fear that they would have understood it as little as I did. 
Yet it might conceivably have caused them to think, a use- 
ful exercise in which they did not much indulge during 
those bitter days. 

Some time afterwards — it must have been in 1859 or 
1860, because the scene was not in Winthrop Place but in 
our new house on Beacon Street— Mr. Sumner, who had 
been in Europe, came, as was his habit, to dine with us. 
In the middle of the dinner he arose from his chair and 
stretched himself upon the sofa because the pain in his back 
was so severe that he could not sit up longer without rest- 
ing himself. He never fully recovered, I think, from the 
effects of the assault, for the spine was more or less per- 
manently affected. 

Thus it came about that my first impressions of politics 
were tragic, and I imbibed in this way an intense hatred of 
slavery, which I connected with Southerners and Demo- 
crats. The details were misty and the reasoning vague, 
but the sentiment was vigorous and the general result fairly 
accurate. 

Another figure that I recall in the Winthrop Place days 
was Rufus Choate, sometime Whig Senator from Massa- 
chusetts, always a great lawyer and advocate, a speaker 
of remarkable originality and compelling eloquence, a real 
scholar, and a man of exceptional brilliancy and charm. He 
lived near us in Winthrop Place, and one evening in early 
summer, when my bedtime was drawing on, the maid said 
to me, as we sat by the window : " There is Mr. Choate." I 
looked and saw a tall man with black hair and dark, deep- 
set eyes stroll slowly by, his hat pushed back and his coat- 
sleeves drawn up as if for coolness. That is all, and as it 



THE "OLYMPIANS": 1850-1860 51 

stands it is not a very interesting contribution to our knowl- 
edge of Mr. Choate, and yet that his figure should be vivid 
to me across all these years, that a single glimpse of him 
should have left such a lasting picture on a child's mind, 
shows, I think, what striking qualities the man must have 
had, so impalpable and yet so powerful that, piercing the 
vesture of decay, they fastened themselves indelibly upon 
the memoiy of a little boy. I do not remember ever seeing 
Mr. Choate again, and this one vision of him must have 
been shortly before his death, as he died prematurely in 
1859. It is rather odd that I do not recall him on other 
occasions, for my father greatly admired Mr. Choate, and 
we all knew the family well. A cousin of mine much older 
than I married one of Mr. Choate's daughters, and in after- 
years, through which their friendship has been one of my 
best possessions, I have seen in her and in her sister, Mrs. 
Bell, the charm, the cleverness, the brilliancy and the un- 
ending humor for which Mr. Choate was famous. 

Mr. Choate's power with juries was universally known 
in his lifetime, but this side of a great lawyer's career is un- 
fortunately evanescent, like the glories of celebrated actors, 
which of necessity rest only upon tradition and upon what 
was written about them by their contemporaries. I was, 
of course, born too late to have seen Mr. Choate before a 
jury or to have heard him speak in public, but his reputa- 
tion was still all-pervading at the bar when I studied law, 
and from the lawyers of that day and from his memoirs I 
have come to the conclusion, after comparison with the 
accounts of other great lawyers, that he ranks with Erskine 
and advocates of that class, and that he has never been sur- 
passed before a jury except by Webster in the single speech 
at the White murder trial. Mr. Choate left behind him not 
only this great reputation, but also countless anecdotes of his 
wit and humor and picturesque habit of speech. These, for 



52 EARLY MEMORIES 

the most part, have been published, but there are one or 
two of the many I have heard which I think are not in 
print, and are certainly not well known. 

There was a story famous in its day, and given in his 
"Life" by Mr. Brown, of Mr. Choate cross-examining a 
man who had turned state's evidence against his companions, 
who were charged with murder on the high seas and whom 
Mr. Choate was defending. This man was the most im- 
portant witness for the government, and Mr. Choate drew 
out of him the story of how the murder was planned and 
then asked: "How did they induce you to join?" "Why," 
said the witness, "they told me that we should be all right 
because, even if we were caught, there was a man in Boston 
named Choate who would get us off if we were found with 
the money in our boots." There was a roar of laughter in 
the court-room, and at this point the story always stopped. 
An eye-witness told me that Mr. Choate waited, perfectly 
undisturbed, until the laugh had subsided, then proceeded, 
and working on the reply just made, broke the witness 
down and greatly impaired the weight of his testimony. In 
fact, I believe that he secured the acquittal of his clients. 

Another story which was always a favorite of mine, be- 
cause the touch was so light, was that relating to a client in 
a great patent suit. After the junior counsel had thoroughly 
prepared the case he took the client, who wished to state his 
case to Mr. Choate personally, to see the senior counsel. 
The client began: "Of course, Mr. Choate, you understand 
the principle of the Jacquard loom?" "Certainly," said 
Mr. Choate, who had never heard of the loom before; "of 
course, of course. But assume, for the moment, that I do 
not understand the principle of the Jacquard loom and 
expound it to me as a preliminary." 

There is one more story, and it shall be the last, which 
I am sure has never been printed and which I heard in a 



THE "OLYMPIANS": 1850-1860 53 

curious way. When I was in Congress, General Butler, 
whom I had fought for years politically and whom I had 
never met, came one morning into the House. I happened 
to be passing near where he was standing, and Mr. S. S. 
Cox, of New York, stopped me and introduced me to him. 
After a few words General Butler asked us to come over to 
his house, which was near the Capitol and is now the office 
of the Coast Survey, and lunch with him. We had a veiy 
pleasant luncheon, but the one thing in the conversation 
which I remember was this story of Choate. It was apro- 
pos of a certain claimant who just then had a bill before 
Congress to pay him for some improvement in rifles which 
he had made at the time of the war. "He was always in- 
venting things," said General Butler. "When he was a 
young man he invented some baking machinery and set up 
a factory equipped with it in New Hampshire. The inven- 
tion wasn't worth a damn, and the concern failed, and, of 
course [I liked General Butler's 'of course' at this point], 
it burned down. The insurance companies refused to pay, 
and the claimant retained Mr. Choate and me to sue them. 
I took charge of the case, but the claimant insisted on see- 
ing Mr. Choate, and so one day I took him to Mr. Choate's 
office and the claimant told his story. When he had gone 
I said to Mr. Choate: 'What a liar our client is.' Mr. 
Choate, looking at me with his melancholy eyes, replied : ' I 
would not say that, Mr. Butler; call him an inventor 
rather.' " I have again wandered far from my early days, 
but Mr. Choate is always a temptation whenever one speaks 
or writes of him, and his early death prevented my ever 
knowing him after I had grown up. 

With Mr. Motley (the historian) the case is different. 
He stands out very distinctly among my earliest memories, 
and I came to know him very well in later years. He and 
Mrs. Motley were intimate friends of my grandfather and 



54 EARLY MEMORIES 

of my father and mother. I used to call them "uncle" and 
"aunt," although there was no relationship, and when they 
were not in Europe they, with their daughters, used to pass 
several weeks with us every summer at Nahant. Mrs. 
Motley was a very handsome woman, strong in her affec- 
tions and her dislikes, enthusiastic, earnest, and full of 
charm and fascination. I know that she charmed a small 
boy who became very fond of her, and years only served to 
confirm the boy's opinion. Mr. Motley I used to look at 
in those days with round eyes and loved to hear him talk, 
although naturally I did not understand very well all that 
he said; but he was so handsome, so spirited, with such an 
exciting and inspiring manner, that he compelled the vagrant 
attention even of a boy to whom the "Dutch Republic" and 
the "Beggars of the Sea" then first appeared above the 
mental horizon. 

Mr. Longfellow lived at Nahant and I saw him from 
earliest boyhood, but for some reason not explicable now he 
did not become real to me, although I knew many of his 
poems, until much later. On the other hand, Mr. Agassiz 
is one of my earliest and strongest remembrances. This 
was the case partly, I suppose, because Mrs. Agassiz was 
an intimate friend of my mother, partly because my sister 
went to Mr. Agassiz's school in Cambridge, but chiefly, I 
think, because whenever a strange fish was caught off our 
shores my father always said that he was going to show it 
to Mr. Agassiz, who would know all about it. This struck 
me as an evidence of surprising wisdom, as indeed it was, 
although I did not know that it implied that the question 
was to be asked of the greatest living authority on fishes, 
past or present. Moreover, Mr. Agassiz was a man who 
impressed a boy just as he did eveiy one who came in con- 
tact with him. His fluent English with the marked French 
accent, quite strange to a child ; the atmosphere of strength, 



THE "OLYMPIANS": 1850-1860 55 

both ph) r sical and mental, which seemed to pervade him; 
the large, genial, kindly presence, the sense of power; all 
alike were at once imposing and reassuring, leaving a mark 
on the young memory not to be effaced. 

I cannot recall the time when Benjamin Peirce, the 
eminent mathematician and a professor at Cambridge, was 
not at once familiar and impressive to me. Mrs. Peirce 
was a cousin of my mother and the "Professor" was con- 
stantly at our house. His successful criticism of Leverrier's 
computations of the variations of Uranus and his discovery 
of the fluidity of Saturn's rings had already made him 
famous and laid the foundation of that international repu- 
tation to which the long list of honors conferred upon him 
by foreign societies, as duly set forth in the Harvard cata- 
logue, bears imposing witness. Of all this I knew nothing 
then, and the names of his mathematical achievements are 
all that I have learned since. But he made a profound im- 
pression on my imagination. I heard him spoken of always 
with admiration, and I gathered that he was a man of vast 
and mysterious knowledge, not understood by most people, 
which was true enough, but the effect on my mind was to 
make me regard him as a species of necromancer or magician. 
His appearance fostered the idea. He wore his black hair 
veiy long, after the fashion of his youth. He had a noble 
leonine head and dark, deep-set eyes. His voice possessed 
a peculiar quality. It was without any metallic or ringing 
note, but as if slightly veiled, and very attractive for some 
reason which I have never clearly defined. Altogether he 
had a fascination which even a child felt, and all the more 
because he was full of humor, with an abounding love of 
nonsense, one of the best of human possessions in this vale of 
tears. I know that I was always delighted to see him, be- 
cause he was so gentle, so kind, so full of jokes with me, and 
"so funny." As time went on I came as a man to know 



56 EARLY MEMORIES 

him well and to value him more justly, but the love of the 
child, and the sense of fascination which the child felt, only 
grew with the years. 

Among the companions of my uncle, George Cabot, at 
the Latin School, was John Fitzpatrick, who became greatly 
attached to my uncle and kept up his friendship with our 
family after the latter's early death. Fitzpatrick rose to 
be Bishop of Boston, which was far from being then the 
Irish and Catholic city it has since become. He was known 
to every one as "Bishop John," and was a most excellent 
man, very popular, and greatly beloved. He came a great 
deal to our house, especially in summer, for there was no 
Roman Catholic church at Nahant then, and he or Father, 
afterwards Bishop, Healey used to celebrate an early Mass 
in our "Union" church which had never been consecrated 
and of which my father was warden and treasurer. " Bishop 
John" was not only very kind to me, but the best of com- 
panions, genial, affectionate, and sympathetic. He had a 
high regard for my father, who used to help him very lib- 
erally with his poor people, and was especially generous to 
the orphan asylum, for whose head, Sister Ann Alexis, my 
father had deep admiration. 

Yet another whom I remember well at that time was Doc- 
tor Henry Bigelow, the father of my friend, Sturgis Bigelow. 
He belonged, in common with my own parents and all those 
of my friends generally, to what Mr. Kenneth Grahame has 
so happily called the "Olympians," the grown-up persons 
who wield a despotic, unquestioned, and apparently un- 
reasoning authority over the destinies of small boys. But I 
distinguished him as different from the others, not merely 
because I heard my father speak of him with admiration, but 
because of the personal impression he made upon me. He 
was an ardent sportsman, and his house was full of dogs and 
guns and firearms of all descriptions, which were, of course, 



THE "OLYMPIANS": 1850-1860 57 

irresistibly alluring to any properly constituted boy. But 
there was something about the man himself which makes him 
stand out in the past as I tiy to revive the boyish recollec- 
tions. I think it was mainly his extraordinary clearness of 
statement, the feeling of finality in all he said, qualities 
which always give a sense of power and mastery. I knew of 
course that he was a doctor. I did not know that he was 
the greatest surgeon of the day in our country. Still less did 
I know, what many, many years after I was to learn, that 
by his introduction of the system of reducing dislocations of 
the hip by manipulation and by his revolution, then in the 
distant future, in the operation of lithotrity, he was to re- 
lieve an incalculable amount of human suffering. I say that 
I came to know these facts, but they are not generally known 
even by the people who have profited by them. The dis- 
tinguished physicians and surgeons, who by their discoveries 
and their self-sacrifice have done more than all others to 
mitigate the physical miseries of humanity, are less recog- 
nized and remembered, I have often thought, than any 
other benefactors of the race. Their names may have an 
unpleasant association with a disease or an operation, but 
they themselves pass out of sight, although the lives they 
led and the work they did, and their observation of human 
nature, are more interesting than those of many of the men 
about whom volumes have been written. In Doctor Bige- 
low, whom I knew well and saw constantly until his death in 
1S90, there was also a remarkable dexterity and lucidity of 
mind, as well as a capacity for rapid and brilliant generaliza- 
tion, which as a boy I always felt while listening to him and 
which as a man I could define and appreciate. 

Such were the men, seen by me now in the backward look, 
who impressed me in those early years as in some undefined 
way more interesting than the rest, and who were to my 
mind in their effect upon me, or in what I heard, of greater 



58 EARLY MEMORIES 

importance than others. Yet this serious sense of their 
importance, although strongly felt, did not put them at all 
in the class of those who were heroes to me at that moment. 
It merely set them apart. My heroes then were at once 
nearer and better understood, more familiar and more ad- 
mired. 

The event in which I think I felt the most passionate 
interest at that time was the great fight between Heenan 
and Sayers. The manner in which the English crowd broke 
the ropes, when Heenan had finally got Sayers in chancery 
and in another minute would have broken his neck or won 
the fight, filled me with an anger which I still think just, 
but at winch I now smile and wonder. It seemed to me that 
no greater injustice had ever been committed than this 
act of violence, which led to the declaration that it was a 
drawn fight. It was my first experience of what is called 
fair play in England, and I do not think that I ever wholly 
recovered from it, although I have seen so many instances 
of it since that I have come to appreciate what it means. 
From this vivid recollection of the famous battle, it may be 
gathered what sort of persons appeared really heroic to me 
when I was a small boy. They were men whose feats were 
chiefly physical, great prize-fighters, athletes, riders, hunters, 
and adventurers by sea and land, of whom I read, and their 
more humble exemplars in the stable, by the river, or on 
the playing-field, with whom I loved to associate and whom 
I watched admiringly from a distance. 



CHAPTER IV 
BOYHOOD: 1860-1867 

I must begin this chapter after the Shandean manner 
by going back and telling what happened during the period 
covered by its predecessors and which was there omitted. 
There were various incidents before the year with which 
this chapter begins which I cannot pass over in silence, be- 
cause they were so important to me and loomed so large in 
my small life at that time. 

In the year 1858 we were obliged to leave Winthrop 
Place, as Devonshire Street was opened through from the 
rear and passed directly across the site of our house and 
garden. My father, therefore, bought No. 31 Beacon Street, 
and thither, when he had practically rebuilt the house, we 
went to live in 1859, after some months at the Revere 
House, necessitated by the delays occasioned by the altera- 
tions. Thirty-one Beacon Street had belonged to Mr. 
Samuel Eliot, a well-known and greatly respected citizen in 
the Boston of those days. He had served in Congress as a 
conservative Whig from one of the Boston districts, and 
going into business late in life had lost all his property 
when the firm with which he was connected was carried 
down in the panic of 1857, a disaster so wide-reaching in 
its effects that I well remember the feeling of gloom which 
seemed to oppress every one during that year. Thus it 
came about that Mr. Eliot's house and all that it contained 
was sold for the benefit of his creditors. My father in 

59 



60 EARLY MEMORIES 

buying it tried to do everything in his power to soften the 
blow which had fallen upon Mr. Eliot. He offered to take, 
and took, at the valuation which the family caused to be 
placed upon them, any articles in the house which they 
wished to dispose of. But my father was especially dis- 
tressed at the thought that Mr. Eliot would be compelled 
to lose his library. He therefore made inquiries, indirectly, 
to find out whether Mr. Eliot would accept the library if 
it were bought from the assignees and presented to him. 
Being satisfied on this point, he went to some of Mr. Eliot's 
friends, raised the money, bought the library and gave it 
to Mr. Eliot. None of the subscribers allowed his name to 
be known except my father, who could not avoid doing 
so as he was obliged to represent the others and make the 
presentation. So much time has passed since then that 
there can be no harm in giving the correspondence, which 
affords a pleasant glimpse of the Boston of those days and 
of the ways of her people. On a note from Mr. Eliot's son 
(afterwards the distinguished president of Harvard Univer- 
sity), which said that his father would be gratified to re- 
ceive his library, my father had written: 

You will see by the above that Mr. Eliot is willing to receive 

the books as proposed. 

J. E. L. 

Then on the next page he had the names (most of them 
autographs) of the gentlemen who subscribed to buy in 
the library. As I have just said, they would not permit 
their names to be known at the time; but now there is 
no longer a reason for any concealment of their friendship, 
and good-feeling, even delicacy as sensitive as theirs, would 
not be shocked at allowing the left hand to know what the 
right hand had done. The names are as follows, a very 
excellent Boston list, as well as a great tribute to Mr. Eliot 



BOYHOOD: 1860-1867 61 

and to the high and affectionate regard which was felt for 
him by every one: 

Nathan Appleton, 

William Appleton, 

William Sturgis, 

Ozias Goodwin, 

Henry Cabot, 

John E. Lodge, 

John Bryant, 

David Sears, 

William Amory, 

William H. Prescott, 

Josiah Bradley, 

Francis Bacon, 

I. Davis, Jr., 

W. H. Bordman, 

N. Thayer. 

The two following notes complete the little story: 

March 9th, 1858. 

MY DEAR SIR: — ' 

The receipt of the books which were moved to my present resi- 
dence yesterday renews the feeling of which I have had frequent 
experience lately, of gratitude to my friends. As I do not know 
to whom I am indebted for this act of considerate kindness and 
marked generosity I must beg of you, to whom I owe the sugges- 
tion, I believe, to communicate to the parties my thanks in a suit- 
able manner and to assure them that a new association will be 
formed with my books, more valuable than all the wisdom or 
beauty they contain and that I hope to make a proper use of them 
and to leave them to my children as an evidence of the liberality 
and thoughtfulness of those with whom I have lived and whom I 
am proud to call my friends. 

With grateful esteem, 
Yrs 

Sam'l A. Eliot. 
John E. Lodge, Esq. 



62 EARLY MEMORIES 

Wednesday 

MY DEAR SIR: — 

Your note of yesterday shows me that your friends did not 
err in supposing that you had a hearty appreciation of your beau- 
tiful library and also that we did not overrate the cordial welcome 
you would bestow upon it, a welcome such as we only accord to 
our old and most valued friends. 

I am but an humble instrument in the performance of this most 
agreeable act, but I shall be most glad to assure your friends whose 
happiness it was to assist in it, that greatly as they enjoyed re- 
storing to you these silent and yet eloquent monitors and friends, 
their pleasure was equalled by yours in receiving them. 

With great regard 

etc etc 

J. E. Lodge 
Hon. Samuel A. Eliot. 

Another pleasant association with this purchase of 31 
Beacon Street has come to me suddenly out of the past, 
and I add it here. In looking over some papers of her grand- 
father, Mr. Prescott, Mrs. Roger Wolcott recently came 
across this allusion in a letter written on Februaiy 22, 1858 : 

"The last item that I have heard is that Mr. Lodge has 
bought Sam. Eliot's house in Beacon St. for $50,000. I 
mean John E. Lodge, and I am glad that it has fallen into 
the hands of an old acquaintance." 

This change of houses brought us into an entirely differ- 
ent quarter of the city. Winthrop Place was in the old part 
of Boston, that low land which lies between the hills and 
the sea, while Beacon Street, although not by any means just 
opened or recently built upon, was the portion of the town 
from which the new residence quarter was destined to 
spring, pushing its way to the westward over the flats of 
the Back Bay, still at that time marsh and w r ater and 
bridged by only one road, known as the Milldam, which 
stretched across the inlets to the mainland at Longwood. 



BOYHOOD: 1860-1867 63 

Thirty-one Beacon Street, where I passed many happy 
j^ears and where my mother continued to live for more 
than forty years, until her death in 1900, stood on the crest 
of the hill, not far from the State House and next to the 
famous and historic home of the first signer of the Declara- 
tion of Independence. The Hancock house was a fine ex- 
ample of its period, good architecturally, built very solidly 
of granite in the Colonial style of the eighteenth century, 
and was raised above the street on a series of terraces. It 
was my father's ambition to buy the house when it came 
into the market and give it to the State, but he died a year 
before the house was sold. Governor Banks had recom- 
mended the purchase of the Hancock house by the State 
some years before, but when the opportunity came the coun- 
try was plunged in civil war, and the government did not 
feel able to spend money on what seemed a mere sentiment. 
So it was sold to private persons and torn down in 1SG3. 
Thus perished by far the finest and historically the most 
interesting of our Colonial houses, the building best worth 
preserving, as a specimen of eighteenth-century domestic 
architecture, which existed in New England or perhaps any- 
where in the old thirteen States. I was convalescent from 
scarlet fever when the house was taken down and used to sit 
at the window of my play-room and watch the men slowly 
piy off one block of stone after another, for the masomy 
was so solid that it could be accomplished in no other way. 
I hated to see this done, for I was attached to the old house 
and had often been in it and over it with Charles Hancock, 
one of the sons of the last owner. 

Our house, as I have said, stood on the crest of Beacon 
Street and looked south over the Common, with its fine 
trees, while from the side windows in the first years we could 
see the street across the Hancock garden, filled with lilac 
bushes, the perfume of which, in our tardy spring, loaded 



64 EARLY MEMORIES 

the air with fragrance. Ours was a spacious house of gen- 
erous width and full of sunshine. I thought then, and think 
still, that it was one of the pleasantest of situations and that 
few city houses have one at all comparable to it. 

The other great event in my life contemporary with 
removal to a new house was my leaving Mrs. Parkman and 
going to a new and, what was far more momentous, a man's 
school, which was kept in a large room under Park Street 
Church. It was a small private school, and the master was 
Mr. Thomas Russell Sullivan, a grandson of James Sullivan, 
governor of Massachusetts at the beginning of the nine- 
teenth century and grand-nephew of John Sullivan, the dis- 
tinguished Revolutionary general. Mr. Sullivan had been 
a clergyman before he became a schoolmaster and was an 
accomplished man. He always seemed to me sad and op- 
pressed with care, owing, I suppose, to the fact that his 
health was giving way. But he was a thorough gentleman, 
kindly and good, and, although I regarded him as a natural 
enemy at the time, I find now that I recall his memory with 
affection and respect. 

This change of school was to me a great event and ap- 
peared in the light of a promotion, as I fancy the first man's 
school always seems to a boy. Yet I left Mrs. Parkman's 
with secret regret, for I had the unmanly weakness, as I 
considered it, to be fond of her, and I was much attached to 
the boys who had been my companions in her house. I 
do not know that one's schoolfellows are of much interest 
to anybody except themselves, although I have always en- 
joyed the accounts of Lamb's and Coleridge's schoolmates, 
most of whom are rescued from oblivion merely by that asso- 
ciation. I think, however, that all schoolboys have the 
charm at the moment which possibilities always possess, 
and afterward develop the interest which is inseparable 
from looking backward and seeing how these possibilities 



BOYHOOD: 1860-1867 65 

of school and college finally worked out, and how constant 
the rule is in these cases of the unexpected happening. 
There is pleasure as well as pain in such retrospects which 
disclose the spectacle both of success and failure, and the 
humor of the early memories is often clouded by the pathos 
or the tragedy with which the little stories end — 

"Some with lives that came to nothing, 
Some with deeds as well undone; 
Death came silently and took them 
Where they never see the sun." 

Just as it happened to Galuppi's Venetians. It is a very 
old and very familiar story. 

With those of my school companions at Mrs. Parkman's 
who have lived, I have maintained my friendship and con- 
tinued to know them more or less intimately all my life. 
Among them were Sturgis Bigelow, doctor, man of science, 
lover of art, public benefactor and friend of a lifetime; 
Henry Parkman, successful and trusted business man and 
lawyer, head of a great bank; Arthur Mills, successful like- 
wise in business, maker of his own fortune, dead in 1907; 
Livingston W^adsworth, my especial crony in those days, 
who died when he was only fourteen, bringing me my first 
boyish sorrow for a friend; his younger brother, Herbert; 
my cousin Harry- Lee, who died young; another cousin, 
Samuel Cabot, odd, genial, lovable, who made an unex- 
pected fortune by his own inventions and became a Shake- 
spearean scholar because he was bewitched by the Baconian 
absurdity. They all seem very vivid and real as I write 
their names, and it is pleasant to think that these first 
friendships, made so long ago, remained unbroken except 
by death. 

At Mr. Sullivan's, made memorable to me by the fact 
that I was there ferruled for the first time, while my friends 



66 EARLY MEMORIES 

lurked outside the door to count the blows, and see whether 
I cried, I remember but few of the boys. I think I lost 
sight of most of them after our brief two years together, 
but there were a few whom I first knew there and whom I 
have known ever since. One was Frank Hubbard, a cousin 
and an intimate, with whom I shot and fished and travelled, 
but of whom I saw little in later life, as he did not go to col- 
lege. A second was Frank Jackson, also a kinsman, who 
went on with me to my next school and thence to Harvard. 
A third was George Lyman, a strong, active boy, ready for 
any sport or adventure; in these later years a leader in our 
Republican politics, chairman of our State committee, a 
member of our national committee, and for twelve years 
collector of the port of Boston. A fourth was Frank Chad- 
wick, a friend and companion at Nahant, with me at my 
next school and in college, of whom I shall have more to 
say later. Yet another of them was Russell Sullivan, son of 
the master, writer of plays and novels and charming stories, 
a friend long years afterwards of Robert Louis Stevenson, 
one of my intimates then, sharing my love of the theatre, 
the most delightful of men and a lifelong friend. Still 
another intimate of those days, whom I had known from 
the beginning as a neighbor, was Russell Gray, younger 
brother of the eminent justice of the Supreme Court of the 
United States, Horace Gray. He was just my age, but like 
most of his family so phenomenally clever at his books that 
he was two years ahead of the rest of us, both at school and 
college. None the less he too has been the friend of a life- 
time and he figures largely in the memories of my boyhood. 
So also do the two Sargents, Horace and Lucius, sons of Gen- 
eral H. B. Sargent. Lucius, the younger, became in later 
years one of my closest and best-loved friends. He was a 
handsome, gallant boy, and was a gallant and handsome 
man, full of humor, charm, and fascination. 



BOYHOOD: 1860-1867 67 

In thus mentioning a few of the boys whom I knew at 
the beginning of life, I am led to say something to which I 
have long desired to give utterance, purely for my own satis- 
faction, of boys in general and of bo} r nature, a much mis- 
understood subject, so far as my observation goes, especially 
in literature. The misunderstanding arises, I fear, not from 
ignorance so much as from unwillingness to tell the truth, 
just as happens in the attempts of literature to describe the 
lives of young men. Thackeray came nearer to it than any 
one when he told the story of Pendennis, and yet he did not, 
and I think he admitted that he did not, dare to tell the 
whole truth. "There are subjects, my dear," said Major 
Pendennis to his sister-in-law, "about which a young fellow 
cannot surely talk to his mamma." It is eminently proper 
that there should be such a restriction. It is equally true 
that there are some things that no man says to young girls 
or to innocent children, but when you assume that literature 
must be framed according to those restrictions the truth 
of literature to life is apt to be defective. The episodes in 
" Pendennis" of Fanny and the Fotheringay and of Warring- 
ton's marriage were as far as Thackeray had the courage to 
go in indicating a side of nearly every man's life which those 
who write the English language think it due to the great 
fetich of respectability to suppress. Fielding and Smollett, 
living in a time of much less "respectability," were more 
truthful and are now thought coarse, but the nineteenth 
century in England and America preferred suppression, 
although, as Mr. George Sampson remarked of the under 
petticoat: "After all, you know, ma'am, we know it's there." 
From this attitude there has been of late years a revolt, 
conducted, unluckily, for the most part by such inferior 
hands that the result is even less lifelike than when Vic- 
torian "respectability" set its burdensome limitations upon 
all writers. In France they have suffered from the hypoc- 



68 EARLY MEMORIES 

risy of vice, as in England and the United States from the 
hypocrisy of virtue, and the result has been nearly as de- 
forming. The youthful Casanova, Chevalier de Seingalt, is 
almost as rare among young men as the blameless prig and 
is as unreal as a hero of the Romantic period like Pelham. 

In the same way, although not for the same precise 
reason perhaps, we have suffered from the suppressio veri in 
regard to boys. The best analysis of boy nature at large 
that I have ever seen, and I read it long after I had ceased to 
be a boy, is that of Mr. Howells in "A Boy's Town." This 
analysis is limited by the fact that it relates to boys in a 
small country town in a newly settled country, and there is 
some slight suppression, but the essential features are all 
set forth. Mr. Howells points out the close resemblance of 
boys to savages or primitive people as shown by their queer 
adhesion to meaningless customs, such as doing certain 
things only at certain times of the year, their odd supersti- 
tions wholly unconnected with religion, their loyalty to 
some code peculiar to themselves and alien to eveiy one 
else, and their ready hero-worship, often misdirected but 
at bottom generous and fine. He describes the mad en- 
thusiasm and excitement with which they rush into any 
new pursuit and the ease with which they tire of it and thrust 
it aside, lacking, like savages, both foresight and tenacity 
of purpose, something very different from obstinacy, in 
which boys abound. All these points are at once subtle 
and true, speaking, as we must, of boys as a class and not 
of the exceptional boys who prove the existence of the rule. 

Most of these qualities are entirely overlooked by those 
who have undertaken to write about boys. Consider, for 
instance, the Jacob Abbott books. Heaven forbid that I 
should underrate those works, for I read them over and 
over again, and they had the same unfailing attraction for 
my children. The charm, I think, consists in the extreme 



BOYHOOD: 1860-1867 69 

realism of the incidents, a realism so dry and unrelenting 
that it leaves the greatest of modern realists far behind. 
It is ; however, just this dry realism which children like, al- 
though at the same time they adore faiiy stories which appeal 
only to their imagination. But the boys and girls who are 
the heroes and heroines of these tales, from Rollo down, are, 
like Dryden's Mexicans, beings who never really existed 
anywhere on sea or land. To the adult mind they are humor- 
ous, but children accept them seriously and are fully con- 
tent with the matter-of-fact incidents of their lives. 

Take another example: a book which was the favorite 
with all boys of my time, "School Days at Rugby." Up to 
a certain point no better book describing boys was ever 
written. Tom Brown and Harry East are real boys, real in 
their activities, in their habit of regarding the masters as 
their tribal enemies, in their shirking of lessons, in their 
courage at games, in their complete lack of any sense of re- 
sponsibility, in their loyalty to their own code of honor, and 
in the cheerful paganism of their lives. The story goes to 
pieces when Arthur appears. When I read the story as a boy 
I lost all interest after Arthur took control, and revolted 
against it. I could not analyze my feeling then or explain 
it, but the reason is obvious enough. To the average healthy 
boy Arthur appears to be a prig, which he was, and a hypo- 
crite, which he probably was not, but the great defect is 
that he is unreal and untrue to boy life. Such boys no 
doubt exist, but they do not convert other boys and send 
them to head masters to experience a religious revival, be- 
cause most boys are natural and not artificial. The demon 
of respectability conjoined with the then prevailing fashion 
of "muscular Christianity" took this means of marring an 
otherwise excellent book. 

The boys whom I knew, closely resembled Tom Brown 
and Harry East before they held their camp-meetings with 



70 EARLY MEMORIES 

Doctor Arnold. They were as a rule the reverse of timid; 
they fought a good deal among themselves and with others; 
they learned their lessons after a fashion, some veiy well, 
some very ill; they had a portentous activity in mischief 
which occupied much of their time; they had a large and 
ignorant curiosity as to sexual relations, not morbid, merely 
characteristic of the young animal; they all tried to smoke 
and were cured, for the time at least, by being made violently 
sick, and they had a strict sense of honor according to their 
own strange code. They were in an odd way intensely con- 
servative. Youth is radical and revolutionary, but the child 
is conservative. It is not the conservatism of age which 
knows that changes are inevitable and instinctively bears and 
resists them. The child contemplates no change. He re- 
gards the arrangement of his little world as final and resents 
any other view. Hence his superstitions and his attachment 
to certain seasons for certain games or sports. It is interest- 
ing to watch a child gradually outgrow these traits of the in- 
fancy of the race. The boys I knew loved secrets and useless 
mysteiy, and, as Stevenson says in "The Lantern-Bearers," 
indulged in much "silly and indecent talk"; they were 
natural idlers, like savages, and, like savages, they had a ten- 
dency to be cruel, which disappeared as they grew up and 
began to think. They were as a rule generous, and they 
were certainly improvident, again until they began to think, 
for the absence of connected thought among boys, their in- 
ability, to put it more exactly, to think coherently, makes 
foresight impossible and allies them with savages, who repre- 
sent the boyhood of the race. Boys, as I knew them — and 
I speak always of the average and of the majority — were 
adventurous — an excellent quality — and would run huge 
risks for trivial objects, which was much less excellent. The 
boys with whom I lived and played would habitually ven- 
ture their necks climbing over the roofs of high houses or 



BOYHOOD: 1860-1867 71 

"shinning" up trees, in the one case for mischief, in the other 
for birds' eggs. They would run every sort of risk on the 
water or in it, or when the ice broke up in spring, just for 
mere excitement. They had an unbridled love of explosives, 
and few indeed were those who had not burned themselves 
more or less with gunpowder. I was personally very for- 
tunate in this respect, for I think I was naturally cautious. 
Except for pitching out backward and head first from an 
express cart which I had not been invited to enter, and 
knocking myself senseless on the stones of the gutter, and 
on another occasion burning all the skin off my hand with 
a train of gunpowder which I ignited with a view to im- 
printing my immortal initials on a window-sill, I came off 
unscathed. Pain from accidents like these boys bear as a 
rule with savage stoicism, but their moral is very inferior 
to their physical courage. They shrink from going contrary 
to the public opinion of their own world, although they will 
defy that of their elders with a fine indifference. That all 
men are liars we know upon high if hasty authority, but 
although boys entangle themselves in deceptions and do 
not always respect as they ought the division between 
meum and tuum, those whom I knew were as a rule fairly 
truthful, especially to each other, and a boy who broke his 
word was regarded with marked disfavor and contempt. 
They also resembled savages or people of a low civilization 
in their destructiveness. They liked to destroy for the mere 
pleasure of destruction. A large part of the waking hours 
of my friends and myself was given up to mere mischief, 
from ringing door-bells and breaking windows and street- 
lamps to much more serious undertakings. We were in 
consequence anything but popular in the neighborhoods 
which we graced by our presence, and we went in perpetual 
fear of householders whom we had wantonly injured, and 
of policemen who, as we fancied, were on a constant look- 



72 EARLY MEMORIES 

out for us. I know that, like Mr. Swiveller, the number of 
streets which were closed to me steadily increased, not 
as in his case on account of debts, but from the dread of 
just retribution at the hands of those whose property I 
had injured. 

Such were boys as I knew them, young heathens and 
little Gallios for the most part, but rarely hypocrites. If 
the outline I have drawn is not flattering, it is, I believe, 
correct, and these same boys by a large percentage turned 
out well and became honest men and useful citizens. I 
do not believe that they differed much from well-born, 
well-cared-for boys with the same race traditions anywhere 
else. They were at least pleasant to live with, if you were 
one of them, although I can conceive that they might often 
have been a sore trial to those charged with their bringing 
up, as well as to other adult persons who had the misfortune 
to be their neighbors. If they were frequently harsh, or 
even cruel at times, to the timid or the weak, they had a 
wholesome dislike of the youthful prig— especially if he was 
a religious prig— for they felt that such boys must be in- 
sincere and they drove them out from among them. 

Before I come to my next school I must tell of an in- 
cident which befell me at the end of my first decade, and as 
my life has been singularly destitute of adventures I may be 
excused for narrating this one. It is not a tale of adventure 
by flood and field, but of a crime of which I was an involun- 
tary and, as it proved, an important witness. 

In the summer of 1860 I was as usual at Nahant, and 
among my playmates was a boy slightly younger than my- 
self named Charles Allen Thorndike Rice. His father, Mr. 
Henry Rice, and Ins aunts, Mrs. Grant and Mrs. Guild, 
were all friends of my father and mother. They lived in 
summer with their mother, Mrs. Rice, and with the many 
children of the household I habitually played. The young 



BOYHOOD: 1860-1867 73 

Grants and Guilds I had always known. Allen Rice was a 
new acquaintance and much prized by me. To explain the 
situation I must first state some facts which were not known 
to me at the time. Mr. Henry Rice's marriage had been 
an unhappy one, and he and his wife had recently been 
divorced in Maryland, where he then lived. The Maryland 
court had awarded the custody of the child to Mr. Rice. 
When Mr. Rice came to Massachusetts for the summer his 
former wife applied for a writ of habeas corpus in order to 
get possession of the boy. Judge Bigelow of the Supreme 
Court, in an elaborate opinion, delivered on August 1, 1860, 
gave the custody of the child unconditionally to his father. 
Mrs. Rice, who was a passionate and determined woman, was 
bent on gaining possession of her son and had already made 
one attempt to abduct him. Charlie Rice, as I called him, 
was always accompanied by a negro servant, a powerful 
man, named Jackson, which seemed to me odd, but which 
in the easy fashion of childhood I accepted without question. 
As a matter of fact, the negro was armed and was there to 
protect the child. He was always with him except in the 
house or when the boy was at school. The only moment, 
therefore, when it was practicable to kidnap the child was 
when he was actually in school, winch I suppose his father 
thought impossible, but which, as it turned out, was just 
the occasion when the abduction was effected. 

The school in question was a small one, kept by a Mr. 
Fette, and lasted only for two or three hours in the morn- 
ing. It was not considered necessary that I should improve 
my mind by lessons in summer, a deprivation which I bore 
with philosophy, but as most of my friends enjoyed this edu- 
cational advantage I was in the habit of going to the school 
about noon and waiting at the door for them to come out. 
The school was held in a church, a building of the Greek 
temple type, with a Doric portico after the fashion of the first 



74 EARLY MEMORIES 

years of the nineteenth century, when classical buildings 
were much in vogue. So one fine summer morning (Satur- 
day, August 4, three days after the decree of the court) I 
seated myself at the base of one of the aforesaid columns 
to await the escape of my companions from their prison- 
house, which was to occur in a few minutes. I was not a 
conspicuous figure in the landscape, but I was an idle and 
observant one. As I sat there, looking up and down the 
quiet and perfectly empty countiy road — for Nahant was 
a small place in those days, and the great hotel, of which I 
have before spoken, had failed and was closed — my wander- 
ing attention was attracted by a buggy, rapidly driven, 
which passed the church and went on to the end of the road. 
There it turned and came back, turned again and repeated 
the same movement. My father was a lover and owner of 
horses and, as I shall explain later, I had a fine natural 
taste for horses myself. The horse in this particular buggy 
caught my eye and I set him down as very handsome and 
veiy fast. 

Meanwhile I noticed another buggy which had stopped 
farther down the road without coming to the church at all. 
From this second buggy two men alighted, walked up the 
street and stopped on the corner opposite the church. Idly 
watching them I noticed that one was a smooth-faced, dark- 
skinned young man with black hair and that the other was 
a stoutly built, older man, with reddish hair and beard. 
Just as I was looking at them the first buggy came back and 
drew up in front of the church close to where I was sitting. 
A large man with brown hair, mustache, and flowing whiskers 
of the style made famous by Lord Dundreary jumped out, 
the other two men crossed over, and all three rushed into 
the church. In a moment, as it seemed to me, the large 
man with the whiskers came out with Allen Rice in his arms, 
put him into the buggy, drew the boot over him, and drove 



BOYHOOD : 1860-1867 75 

away at top speed. Another moment and the other two 
men ran out and up the street toward their buggy, with the 
schoolmaster, his Newfoundland dog, his pupils, and I all 
in hot pursuit. The men reached their buggy and got 
away before we could overtake them, and that was the last 
I saw of Allen Rice for nearly twenty years. His mother 
disguised him as a girl, and after some narrow escapes man- 
aged to reach Florida, where it was possible to conceal the 
child, and thence contrived to make her way to England, 
where young Rice was educated, going, I believe, to Oxford. 
As for me, I went home from the scene of action full of ex- 
citement and told all I had seen to my family, for it had 
naturally made a profound impression upon my little mind. 
That night as I was going to bed I heard voices outside the 
house, and listening attentively distinguished Mr. Rice 
saying something to my father which sounded like " Cabot 
knowing all about it." What this might portend I did not 
know, but I remember a slight feeling of anxiety similar to 
that most familiar sensation which was wont to beset me 
when I thought that some scrape of mine was on the eve of 
discovery. Little did I realize what importance I had sud- 
denly assumed, but the fact was that I was the only person 
who had got a good look at the large man and who was 
capable of identifying him, because the other two men, 
when they seized the schoolmaster, had kept themselves 
between him and the captor of the boy. 

Two or three days later I was taken to Boston by my 
father. We proceeded to the Charles Street Jail, where we 
met Mr. Rice and some detectives. I was told to walk around 
the whole range of cells, look into each and if I saw any one 
of the three men engaged in the abduction at Nahant, to 
point him out. I walked around as I was bidden, looking 
into some forty cells and some veiy evil faces. When I 
reached the last cell, number one, I stopped and said: "That 



76 EARLY MEMORIES 

is the man who took Charlie." As he had meantime shaved 
off his hair, mustache, and whiskers, the identification was 
unusually prompt and complete. The man's name was 
Nickerson. He was a livery-stable keeper, and he had been 
employed by Mrs. Rice and her mother, who had become 
by a second marriage Mrs. Bourne, and who was a woman 
of large wealth, to kidnap the child. There was no tele- 
graph from Nahant in those days, and no police, so that by 
driving straight to Boston the kidnappers had four miles or 
half an hour's start. With great speed Boston could be 
reached over the road in a little more than an hour, although 
the distance was fifteen miles, but in this way the train and 
the delay at the Lynn station were avoided. Nickerson had 
taken a well-known trotting-horse which belonged to one of 
his customers and which was valued at twenty-five hundred 
dollars, a large sum in those days, and in this way he got 
the boy to Boston before the news reached any one capable 
of action. Incidentally, as I remember, he killed the horse 
by overdriving, and Mrs. Bourne I suppose paid for it. 

The reddish-haired man was named Smith and was a 
hack-driver in the employ of Nickerson. He was arrested 
and identified by Mr. Fette, although I also subsequently 
identified him in court. The third man was never caught. 
I remember being taken one day by the chief detective to 
a shop where rope and twine were sold. On the way he 
said: "Now you are my little boy. We are going to buy 
some kite string, and I want you to look well at the young 
man who sells it to us and tell me if you saw him at Nahant." 
I was delighted to buy kite string and carried out my share 
of the plot perfectly. The salesman was young, dark- 
haired, and smooth-faced, but he was not the third man. 
I told my pretended father so as we walked off, the ball of 
kite string tight under my arm. He seemed disappointed, 
but I think it gave him confidence in my other identifica- 



BOYHOOD : 1860-1867 77 

tions, as showing that I had a decided memory. The third 
man, as I have said, was never taken, and I have no doubt 
that this participant was Mrs. Pace herself, for she was en- 
tirely reckless, and her presence was probably necessary to 
make sure that the right boy was picked up in the scramble. 
Then came the proceedings of the law. I went before a 
grand jury and told my stoiy. There was a technical flaw 
in the indictment and I went before another grand jury and 
told it again. Then, nearly eighteen months after the kid- 
napping, the case came on for trial at Lawrence, one of the 
county seats of Essex County. Up to that time I had en- 
joyed myself hugely. I had been treated as a person of 
importance. I liked to go about with detectives and visit 
jails and buy kite string in an assumed character, and tell 
my stoiy to a few grand jury men in a quiet, empty room, 
and then pocket witness fees which represented a large 
amount of wealth to me at that time. But when it came 
to facing a crowded court-room it was a different matter. 
My imagination had time to work, and as the day approached 
I became veiy nervous and thought that I should break 
down. My father was ill and could not go with me, but 
he promised me that if I told my story well, as I had told it 
to him, and behaved creditably on the witness-stand, he 
would give me a gold watch. Even this alluring prospect 
did not cheer me, and I went with my mother to Lawrence 
and sat trembling in the witness-room in a very doleful 
frame of mind. At last I was called, went out into the 
crowded court-room, took the stand, and was sworn. The 
scene rises vividly before me, for I seemed like a drowning 
man to see everything at once — Nickerson and Smith, 
whom I immediately recognized, judge and jury, counsel 
and spectators. It was a brilliant winter's day, and the 
court-room seemed full of light and people. For the first 
time I noticed how differently a crowd looks when you 



78 EARLY MEMORIES 

are one of the crowd, and when you are the object of the 
crowd's concentrated gaze. Mr. Ives, the district attor- 
ney, a very clever man, examined me in chief — that is, he 
let me tell my story, which I did honestly I know, and 
clearly I think, without either diminution or embroidery. 
I had a good memory, the facts to which I was to testify 
had made a sharp impression, and I had also told the tale 
many times. Mrs. Bourne (or Mrs. Rice) had employed 
strong counsel for the defence: Judge Abbott and Mr. 
Charles Blake, then a rising man at the Boston bar. Mr. 
Blake cross-examined me. He did not shake my story, for 
there was nothing that could be shaken, so he resorted to an 
old device to confuse me. He asked me where the second 
buggy stood. That I told him exactly. Then: "Was the 
curtain in the back up or down? How far away was it? 
Was it fifty yards? Was it seventy-five? Might it have 
been a hundred yards?" and so on. To all which I replied 
truthfully: "I don't know." Suddenly I heard a deep 
voice on my right say : " Mr. Blake, I think that will do. It 
is perfectly evident that the boy is telling the truth." It 
was the judge — Judge Lord, very well known in his day; a 
man of sharp wit and rough tongue, called in capital cases a 
"hanging judge"; respected but feared by the bar and after- 
ward raised to the Supreme Bench of the State. He was a 
strong and able judge and a sound lawyer. He may have 
been rough with members of the bar, but he was very kind 
to me. At all events, he ended Mr. Blake and I left the 
stand. I had hardly reached the witness-room when I 
burst into tears — I was only eleven — and said : " Oh, I made 
a mistake; I must go back," and without waiting I rushed 
again into the court-room, where, regardless of everybody, 
I addressed the judge, whom I looked upon as my next 
friend, and said: "I made one mistake. May I correct it?" 
"Certainly, my boy," said Judge Lord; "say anything you 



BOYHOOD: 1860-1867 79 

please." So I corrected the mistake, which I have entirely 
forgotten — it was something quite trivial — and then left 
the court-room for the second time, much elated. 

In due course I received my watch, an English Frodsham 
with a hunting-case, which I began to wear when I was 
eighteen and have worn ever since, and which had my name 
and the date of the trial engraved on the inside. Mr. Rice 
also gave me a seal ring, so that I felt very proud of my per- 
formance and very rich owing to my witness fees, which, 
as I have said, represented to me at that time untold wealth. 
Nickerson and Smith were convicted and got seven years 
apiece, which they avoided by jumping their heavy bail 
furnished by Mrs. Bourne, and thoughtfully betaking them- 
selves to Canada. That I might have incurred their hos- 
tility, for I was a fatal witness, did not occur to me at the 
time, but some years afterwards, curiously enough, it came 
over me that they might return, the last thing they would 
or could have done, and take an exemplary revenge upon 
my precious person. This gave me some uneasy moments, 
especially at night just before going to sleep. I suppose 
those two men never thought of me again, except as a bit 
of ill luck in their estimable careers. The hero of the little 
drama came again into my life many years later. Returning 
from Europe Allen Rice bought the North American Review, 
and converting that sober quarterly into a monthly, filled 
it with conspicuous names, articles of current interest, and 
made it very successful financially and for the purposes of 
its editor. He took an active interest in politics, was a 
strong Republican and a warm admirer of Mr. Blaine. By 
President Harrison he was appointed minister to Russia, 
and died suddenly in New York just on the eve of his de- 
parture for his new post. I saw Allen Rice on various occa- 
sions, dined at his house and wrote for his Review. He 
seemed glad to renew the acquaintance of boyhood, and we 



80 EARLY MEMORIES 

came together like old friends who despite this fact had 
never met before and had no past in common. The inci- 
dents connected with our last sight of each other were, I 
need hardly say, never alluded to. 

The court-room at Lawrence was my first appearance in 
public. I have faced many audiences since then, but none 
which I have dreaded, and very few where my utterances 
were so efficient in immediate results as they were at this 
trial. It was my first and last appearance as a witness in 
court. 



CHAPTER V 
BOYHOOD— MY LAST SCHOOL: 1860-1867 

In 1861 I left Mr. Sullivan's and went to Mr. DixwelPs 
private Latin school, where I was to be prepared in due time 
for college. Mr. Dixwell had been head master of the Public 
Latin school, the famous and historic school founded in 
Boston at the very beginning of the Puritan settlement. 
He had left that position to establish a school of his own, in 
which undertaking he was highly and deservedly successful. 
For five years he was a very important figure in my daily 
life, and I remember him well both at that time and after- 
wards. I regarded him then, of course, as a tribal enemy 
with whom there was necessarily perpetual war; but I am 
sure that I always respected him, which was by no means 
true of some of my other masters, both in school and college. 
Mr. Dixwell was a direct descendant of John Dixwell, the 
regicide, who sensibly took refuge in Connecticut when the 
estimable Charles II came to the throne. I have thought 
since, perhaps fancifully, that a certain stiffness and rigidity 
which were observable in my master, who was a good deal 
of a martinet and given to severe sarcasm at the expense of 
stupid or disorderly boys, may have been inherited from 
his conspicuously Puritan ancestor, who had passed sen- 
tence of death upon a king. But what I never doubted 
was that Mr. Dixwell was a thorough gentleman, albeit a 
rigorous one, and that he was also a scholar and an accom- 
plished man. I can see him now, a slight, active figure, 

81 



82 EARLY MEMORIES 

walking briskly into the school in the morning, always most 
carefully although quietly dressed, and then mounting the 
platform and calling the school to order in a clear, dry voice. 
I looked upon him with hostility owing to our official rela- 
tions, but that hostility was tempered, as I have said, with 
respect and also with a little fear. He exercised, I am sure, a 
good influence upon me, for he had no patience with sloven- 
liness of mind ; he also taught well, as I found when I reached 
the top of the school and came under him. He was an espe- 
cially good critic and instructor in declamation, which oc- 
curred once a month, and was an exercise in which I began 
very badly and ended by doing very well, finally winning 
the highest marks, thanks to my master's ministrations. I 
am sure that I write dispassionately of Mr. Dixwell, for I 
was never in favor with him, and indeed there was no reason 
why I should have been. The first year that I was in the 
school, mainly I think to gratify my father, I worked hard 
and came out first in my class and third in a school of over 
fifty boys. I found in an old school-book belonging to my 
friend Sturgis Bigelow a list of the class at that time with 
appropriate comments appended to each name by some 
other youth. These comments were without exception un- 
favorable, and I was described as "A miserable little dig," 
an unfeigned tribute to my scholastic eminence, which I 
soon ceased to deserve, for my high rank ended with that 
first year. I found that I could do "well enough" with 
very little effort, and as very little effort suited my tastes 
I stood "well enough" during the rest of my school years, 
but never again upon the high places; while on the conduct 
list, in company with one or two other choice spirits, I sank 
to the bottom, a pre-eminence which I readily maintained. 
I received the usual amount of what was then called 
education, and which was certainly quite as good as what is 
called education now. The old system was in force. We 



BOYHOOD— MY LAST SCHOOL: 1860-1867 83 

spent a great deal of time on the Latin and Greek grammars 
and mastered them thoroughly. We learned to read and 
write Latin and to read Greek with reasonable ease, going 
as far as Virgil, Horace, and Cicero in the one and in the 
other concluding with Felton's Greek Reader, which con- 
tained selections from nearly all the principal poets and 
prose-writers of Greece. To show the range of Felton's 
selections I will merely mention that when I was examined 
for admission to Harvard I was called upon to construe the 
famous fragment of Simonides describing Danae in the chest. 
In addition to the classics we were drilled in algebra and 
plane geometiy, and were given a smattering of French as 
well as a course in Greek and Roman histoiy. That we 
should learn anything of modern history or of the history 
of our own countiy was thought quite needless. 

All those dreary hours spent over the Latin and Greek 
grammars seemed then a waste of time, and yet as mere 
discipline they were, I think, as good as anything else, and 
gave at least a solid foundation upon which to build a knowl- 
edge of the classics if the recipient were so inclined. Sturgis 
Bigelow said to me not long ago: "After all, we were pretty 
well educated. We learned to swim and ride, to box and 
fence and handle a boat." As a commentary upon our edu- 
cation nothing could be better. We really learned " to swim 
and ride, to box and fence and handle a boat," quite apart 
from school, and they were all things well worth learning. 
We also made many enduring friendships in the school 
which went on through life. Among the boys whom I saw 
most at Mr. Dixwell's were Frank Chadwick, who had been 
with me at Mr. Sullivan's, destined to be an artist, then and 
now one of the most delightful of companions, a friend of 
much earlier days, and a neighbor at Nahant, as I have 
already said; Frank Amory, one of my lifelong friends, 
whom I had known more or less before, but now we sat on 



84 EARLY MEMORIES 

the same bench, and when we went to college we roomed 
together for the last three years; Edward Burgess, dead in 
his prime, distinguished later as an entomologist, and still 
later of world-wide fame as a great yacht designer. There 
too was William Lawrence, now Bishop of Massachusetts, 
whom I had also known before, but at Mr. Dixwell's school 
we were to sit side by side for six years, as we did later for 
four more years in college. It would take too long to name 
the many others above and below me in the school whom I 
first met then and with whom I became intimate. It is 
more interesting to tiy at least to give an account of what 
• Gyas and Cloanthus did than simply to catalogue the fact 
that they existed and were strong. 

Bigelow's description of our real education was in the 
main correct; it was largely physical and very enjoyable. 
We all swam at an early age, and at Nahant we passed most 
of our time in the water or on it, for we also at an early age 
learned to row and to sail a boat. Swimming was the fa- 
vorite amusement. We would strip and plunge in anywhere 
and at any time. I well remember one occasion when some 
of my friends and I, having partaken of a heavy luncheon 
at my house, were just leaving the table; my father asked 
what we were going to do. We replied that we were going 
in swimming. There was protest from the older persons 
present, who had a queer elderly idea that violent exercise, 
and especially swimming, immediately after eating was 
likely to produce unfortunate results. Finally my father 
said: " Go and ask Doctor Bigelow; if he does not object you 
may go in." Off we hastened to Doctor Bigelow, who was then 
living near-by. We found him and put our question. He 
looked at us with a quizzical smile and said : " I should not do 
it myself, but nothing hurts boys. Yes, you may go in." So 
we ran off, thinking Doctor Bigelow a very wise man despite 
the fact that he was old, and straightway went in swimming. 



BOYHOOD— MY LAST SCHOOL: 1860-1867 85 

No evil results followed. The diagnosis was accurate. "0 
fortunati nimium!" If boys could only realize the inesti- 
mable good fortune of being a young, healthy, growing ani- 
mal perhaps they would cherish it more than they do. The 
swimming was also accompanied by the joy of lying naked 
on the warm rocks under the hot sun, and thus gradually 
tanning our skins a dark brown. Later in college there was 
much competition among the studious youth in coloring as 
black as possible clay or meerschaum pipes, but it was far 
better sport to color our skins in the air and sunlight, as 
well as infinitely more healthful. 

I do not remember the exact time when I first had a sail- 
boat, but it must have been when I was about thirteen years 
old, and I had a boatman who went with me and taught me, 
and from whose guardianship I was, as a matter of course, 
eager to escape. One day Frank Chadwick and I were out 
with him, and he, wishing to go ashore, tied the boat up at 
the wharf and departed, after making us promise to wait 
just where we were. The promise broke as soon as the boat- 
man was out of sight, and we cast off and began tacking back 
and forth in the bay. While thus pleasantly and happily 
engaged to our own complete satisfaction a big New York 
yacht, The Idler, came in, and as she was running wing and 
wing, her great sails took all the wind out of our little one 
just as we were crossing her course. We lost steerageway, 
and The Idler saw us too late to sheer off. We beheld Fate 
rushing upon us, knew not what to do and did nothing. I 
saw a gentleman whom I knew, Mr. William Otis, run up 
to the bow of The Idler. He recognized us and called out 
"Jump overboard!" Having no views of my own, over I 
went and Chadwick after me, our little boat being swept 
aside by the yacht and not seriously injured. I remember 
a bad moment before I rose to the surface, when it flashed 
over me that I might come up under the yacht; but in an 



86 EARLY MEMORIES 

instant I had my head out of water, saw the big black hull 
gliding by, and then was quite at my ease. We paddled 
about and were picked up in a few minutes, and I remember 
Mr. Otis saying that he had alarmed the people on the yacht 
when he told us to jump overboard, but as he knew very 
well that in the water we should be quite safe he did it 
without hesitation. I and my friends soon learned to sail a 
boat very competently, and later I became the owner of a 
little sloop upon which I passed many hours every summer 
until I left college. 

We boys in those days went also much into the country, 
for there was real country then within easy reach of Boston, 
and we gave many spare hours to walks and expeditions of 
various sorts, often, I am sorry to say, in pursuit of birds' 
eggs, to which we were wont to devote our Saturdays and 
holidays. Then later we went shooting on the cape and else- 
where, and some of us, like Bigelow and Chadwick, became 
capital shots, which I never did, although I gave a great deal 
of time to both the shotgun and the rifle. These weapons 
were put into our hands very early, as it seems to me, and, 
as I guess, through the influence of Doctor Bigelow. 

Altogether, when I look back upon it I think that we 
had a great deal of vigorous outdoor life, which is better 
than many forms of education. We also played all games 
assiduously — football, baseball, hockey, and the rest, varied 
in winter by coasting, skating, and savage snowball fights 
on the Common with boys from the South End and the 
back of Beacon Hill, whom we called "muckers," and who 
usually defeated us owing purely to superior numbers, as I 
have always religiously believed. I was never very apt or 
successful at these games and sports except in steering a 
double-runner which I had built and planned myself and 
which I managed with skill, but I engaged in them all with 
the utmost energy, and that, after all, is the really important 



BOYHOOD— MY LAST SCHOOL: 1860-1867 87 

thing. The merit of athletic sports is not what they bring 
to the nines and elevens and eights who are pictured and 
advertised in the newspapers. Indeed, to the champions 
I am inclined to think that they are often harmful, both 
from the physical strain and the fleeting notoriety. The 
true value of athletic sports is to the average boy like 
myself, who never arrives at any distinction, but who in 
this way learns to like rough-and-tumble games and to be 
fond of vigorous and wholesome exercise and of outdoor 
life. 

I have left to the last the form of outdoor sport which 
I liked best at the beginning and which has been my friend 
and my enjoyment all through my life, and that is riding. 
My father owned and drove fast trotting-horses and also 
rode regularly with my sister, so that we always had a stable 
full of horses of various kinds. As far back as I can remem- 
ber I used to be put upon one of my father's or sister's 
horses and allowed to ride it round the yard at Nahant. 
Then came riding lessons in Boston under the instruction 
of Mr. Thuolt, a follower of Kossuth, a living and very 
robust reminder of the nearness of the great year of 1848. 
He was a Hungarian and had served in the Austrian cavalry, 
a tall, large, fine-looking man, very kind to small boys. 
He also gave us lessons in the broadsword, and I kept for a 
long time the wooden representative of that weapon with 
which I used to practise the cuts and passes. 

At last, in 1861, my father gave me a horse of my own. 
He was a small horse, as big as a polo-pony, of pure Morgan 
stock, the famous Vermont strain, very handsome, veiy spir- 
ited, very fast in all gaits, and very intelligent. He learned 
to know me as if he had been a dog, and would do anything 
I asked of him. I was, as I have said, fond of firearms and 
I trained "Pip" — he was named Pip because my father 
said I had such "Great Expectations" of him — to stand so 



88 EARLY MEMORIES 

that I could fire a pistol from his back, which not only satis- 
fied my sense of the general fitness of things, as derived 
from Mayne Reid, but also enabled me on one occasion to 
kill a dangerous dog which used to spring out at me on a 
certain countiy road. I cannot resist saying as much as 
this about one of the best and best-loved friends of my 
boyhood. I rode him for many years, and when I outgrew 
him drove him in a light wagon. He lived to a ripe age; 
he was never " sick or sorry " for a day, so far as I remember, 
and he never refused a fence or declined to go anywhere 
when I asked him, either to take a jump or to follow me. 

The epoch-making summer when Pip was presented to 
me was also marked by the fact that we passed it at New- 
port instead of at Nahant. I think my father had an idea 
of buying a house there and wanted to tiy the place for a 
summer. But that which makes Newport in 1861 truly 
memorable to me is that there I really learned to ride, for 
when I had got a firm seat Parker, our English coachman, 
put up some bars in the lane behind our house and taught 
me to jump, for which I have always held him in grateful 
remembrance. Newport itself was not to my taste at that 
time. Its character and its life were much the same then 
as now, but the scale of living was far more modest. The 
great houses and small palaces of the Newport of to-day 
had then no existence, although there were some handsome 
villas, the most considerable being that of Mr. Bareda, the 
Peruvian minister, which, with its terrace, excited my youth- 
ful admiration. Bellevue Avenue was not yet entirely 
built up. Bateman's Point was reached by a long country 
drive among outlying farms destitute of houses, and every- 
thing else was proportionate. The bathing was the same 
as now; the gayety, the society, the "dull, mechanic pacing 
to and fro" which was called driving on the avenue, were all 
much as they are at the present time. There was a great 



BOYHOOD— MY LAST SCHOOL: 1860-1867 89 

deal of fine dressing, an abundance of handsome horses and 
carriages from four-in-hands down, and all the paraphernalia 
which have since been developed to such an amazing degree. 
But if the scale was smaller in those days there was, I believe, 
better taste as well as less vulgarity and ostentation than are 
seen there to-day. The large hotels with which every 
American watering-place has begun its career were not yet 
extinct. The Ocean House, the Fillmore, and the Belle vue 
were still in active existence, but the Atlantic House was 
being prepared, I think, for midshipmen, as, owing to the 
war, the Academy was to be transferred from Annapolis to 
Newport. The Academy was not formally transferred until 
October, 1861, but the midshipmen were at Fort Adams, I 
believe, and when I was again in Newport, in 1S64, they were 
occupying the old Atlantic Hotel. 

How my family enjoyed their summer there I do not 
know, but I regarded Newport with great disfavor. I 
missed my friends, I disliked the artificial life, I preferred 
the rocks of Nahant and deep water to swimming in bathing 
clothes from a flat beach. I found some compensation 
in catching bluefish and in sailing about the harbor, but 
the alleviation was slight. It was therefore with joy that 
I returned to Boston, especially as the vacation was not 
quite over and I was able to go to Nahant for a few days' 
stay at our gardener's house, which I particularly liked to 
do, and pass my days with Chadwick. While I was there, 
on the night of September 11, the huge wooden barrack 
of a hotel with which Mr. Paran Stevens had intended to 
convert Nahant into a fashionable watering-place took fire 
and burned to the ground. A veiy splendid fire it was, seen 
far up and down the coast and by distant vessels out at sea 
as it blazed up on its lonely promontory. I say politely 
"took fire," but the hotel had been wholly unoccupied for 
some weeks, and I fear it may be said, as General Butler re- 



90 EARLY MEMORIES 

marked of the baking machinery, "It was a failure and of 
course it burned." The hotel had failed utterly, and Mr. 
Paran Stevens, as Bishop Clark, of Rhode Island, said to me 
years afterwards, "got out in what is civilly called an adroit 
manner," leaving his partners with the property and the 
debts. After the fire the estate came on the market and 
my father made an effort to induce some of his friends in 
Nahant to join in buying it in order to rebuild the old small 
hotel. The attempt came to nothing, because in that war- 
time nobody wished to buy Nahant land, so my father 
bought it himself, gave up all idea of going to Newport, and 
began to prepare the place for his own house. He did not 
live to carry out his plans, but in later years my sister and 
I built our houses there, left our old villa which belonged 
to my grandfather, and have lived at East Point ever 
since. 

My account of sports and outdoor life has led me to 
Newport and back to the Nahant hotel fire, but I would 
not have it supposed, as I wish to give all the influences 
which were at work on my life, that I had no other occupa- 
tion than sports and athletics, supplemented by general 
mischief and destructiveness in my idler moments. 

There was, in the first place, one occupation neither 
athletic nor physical in its nature from which I derived 
much excitement, a great deal of amusement, and I venture 
to think some real information and instruction. This was 
going to the theatre, for which I came by accident to have 
unusual opportunities. The first time I was ever taken 
to the^ theatre was to see the pantomime and ballet of 
"Cincferella." I remember the scene of the kitchen and 
the child by the fire, then the pumpkin turning into a 
coach, and then nothing more. I was told long afterwards 
that at that point I fell heavily asleep, and in that condition 
was carried home and put to bed. But after this first 



BOYHOOD— MY LAST SCHOOL: 1860-1867 91 

broken recollection, the date of which I cannot fix definitely, 
theatrical memories grow very numerous. Those which fill 
the largest space relate, of course, to the Ravels, the famous 
brothers, four at first, and then gradually dwindling as each 
retired until only one remained. The rope-dancing and 
tumbling, the athletic feats, and the ballets, which formed 
part of the performances, were like everybody else's, and 
although they filled my childhood with wonder I have seen 
all these things done a thousand times, and done much 
better and with greater difficulties and larger risks. But 
the Ravels themselves in their pantomimes I have never 
seen equalled, and I have watched such performances care- 
fully in many places. Their agility, their humor, their 
dumb show were not only perfect in themselves, but of ex- 
traordinary dramatic quality. Any one who recalls Fran- 
gois or Gabriel in the two little plays entitled "Pongo" and 
"Jocko," or the "Wonderful Apes," will understand what 
I mean, for in those impersonations it was not the feats of 
dexterity and agility which they performed, but the acting 
which impressed one most. Antoine Ravel was the best 
and most comic clown I have ever seen, and I have seen 
many. All his fun, too, was in pantomime, so that he had 
to amuse his audience solely by action and play of feature, 
without the aid of the aged, clumsy, and sometimes coarse 
jokes of the clown of the circus ring. In the "Magic 
Trumpet" and the "White Knight" he was especially 
effective, but I also remember being thrilled by the exciting 
scenes of "Bianco," by "Raoul, or the Magic Star," by 
"Robert Macaire," and by "Mazulm, or the Night Owl," 
all long since vanished from every stage. 

The first serious play I ever witnessed was "Julius 
Caesar." My grandfather took me to see it at the Howard 
Athenaeum, because he said that I ought to see that play 
when given by such a company. I was very young at the 



92 EARLY MEMORIES 

time, but I enjoyed it all hugely and was deeply stirred. It 
was indeed a remarkable cast. E. L. Davenport, a first- 
rate actor of the old school, was Brutus, Edwin Booth was 
Cassius, Lawrence Barrett was Mark Antony, and John 
McCullough was Caesar. They were all young men except 
Davenport, and all rose to the first rank, Booth, of course, 
being the greatest and even then the star. I did not fall 
asleep that afternoon, and every part of the performance is 
as vivid to me as if it were yesterday. I have seen the play 
many times since, but I doubt if it has ever been given 
better than on that occasion, so memorable to me as my 
first experience of a great play worthily enacted. Brutus 
and Cassius, of course, impressed me most, but I have never 
forgotten Antony in a green toga delivering the great ora- 
tion. How well Barrett did it I do not know, but I remem- 
ber that it made me eager to join the Roman mob and 
avenge the death of Caesar on the spot. 

My father and grandfather took me to see the Ravels 
and Shakespeare, and having thus acquired a taste for the 
theatre I soon began to gratify it independently. Those 
were the days of stock companies, of standard plays, and of 
changing bills. "Long runs" had not yet become predomi- 
nant, and the stage was not then filled, as it so largely is 
to-day, with comic operas of various degrees of inanity, 
with variety shows and exhibitions of chorus girls' figures 
and dresses, or of the absence of both. The Boston Museum 
had an excellent stock company, the chief figure in which 
was William Warren, a comedian of the best school and 
highest order. He was finest in high comedy, but he was also 
admirable in farces; and many a one by Morton, whose debt 
to Labiche I did not then realize, have I seen him give. I 
must not, however, confuse early recollections with the 
later ones of a time when I was better able to appreciate 
Warren's delightful art. What I preferred in those young 



BOYHOOD— MY LAST SCHOOL: 1860-1867 93 

days was melodrama. I discovered that a seat in the gal- 
lery cost only twelve and one-half cents, or ninepence, as it 
was called at that time, and many a Wednesday or Satur- 
day afternoon, in company with Frank Jackson or Russell 
Sullivan, whose fondness for the drama corresponded with 
mine, did I betake myself to the somewhat heated atmos- 
phere of the upper regions of the Museum and revel in the 
performance of "Jeanie Deans" or the "Colleen Bawn." 
Those happen to be the plays which recur to me most vividly, 
although I do not know exactly why it should be so. In 
thinking of the former I still feel a thrill when I recall the 
scene on the heath or that in which Jeanie meets Queen 
Caroline. Perhaps my affection for Scott made the play 
clearer to me. As to the "Colleen Bawn," we were so cap- 
tivated by it that Russell Sullivan and I rigged up some 
scenery in my play-room and there gave an abbreviated 
version of Mr. Boucicault's work, consisting chiefly of the 
attempted drowning of the Colleen Bawn and her rescue 
by Myles na Coppaleen, or "Myles of the Ponies," as the 
play-bill carefully informed those who were so unfortunate 
as to be unfamiliar with the Irish language. In this 
performance Russell Sullivan, destined to write for the 
stage more than one successful play, took the part of the 
Colleen and I played that of Myles. Who was induced to 
take the necessary part of the villain, Danny Mann, I do 
not recall, but nothing less than the hero satisfied me, and 
as the proprietor of the theatre I laid claim to it. The 
audiences I think were small, consisting of a few other boys 
and friendly servants, but I am sure that the drowning and 
rescue with the plunge of Myles into the water, represented 
by parallel strips of paper of proper color as on the stage, 
gave great satisfaction to the performers, if to no one else. 
I have indeed very tender recollections of the old Museum 
as the source of many pleasures. -It had, besides the theatre, 



94 EARLY MEMORIES 

a real museum filled with all sorts of curiosities, strange 
pictures, and oddities of every kind brought chiefly from 
Polynesia and Africa. The museum part served to soothe 
the susceptibilities of persons from the country who thought 
it wrong to go to a theatre but not to a museum. If a the- 
atrical performance happened to be going on within the 
precincts of a museum these worthy people could under that 
condition witness it without endangering their spiritual or 
moral welfare. All along the front of the museum building 
ran three or four rows of lights, gas-burners in white globes, 
and thus illuminated it seemed to me a place of splendor 
and enchantment, full of a vast promise of strange and mys- 
terious delights. When the building was torn down, some 
years since, I felt a real pang at the disappearance of those 
lights, for I knew that no others existed or ever would exist 
which could give me the same sensations or awaken the 
same fascinating associations. Just before the final disap- 
pearance of the building I noticed one day, as I was passing 
by, the red flag of the auctioneer. I dropped in and found 
that the old properties of the theatre were being sold. It 
was a strange collection: worn-out dresses of velvet and 
tinsel in which courtiers had once strutted in brief and gas- 
lit brilliancy, musty costumes of peasants, old guns, hal- 
berds, drums, and all the panoply of mock war, pasteboard 
goblets from which the gilding had dropped away, a strange 
and motley collection, sordid, worn, dirty, valueless. I 
thought how often these melancholy relics must in their day 
have dazzled and deceived my eyes, and I confess I turned 
away with sad reflections in my heart and a wish that I had 
for a moment the gift of Charles Lamb so that I might have 
done justice to all these poor old vanities and pretences, 
dusty and decayed, lying there in the harsh, unsparing light 
of day, and to the tender sentiment, the pleasant memories 
which they inspired in at least one of those who were idly 



BOYHOOD— MY LAST SCHOOL: 1860-1867 95 

looking at them in the hour when they were despised and 
rejected of men. 

Let me not forget here another species of performance 
far removed from the legitimate drama in which I took an 
almost equal interest. This was the negro-minstrel show, 
for that was the heyday of negro minstrels. They had 
regular and permanent establishments in all the large cities. 
The one in Boston was that of Morris Brothers, Pell and 
Trowbridge, and many an hour have I passed in their in- 
tellectual society, to the great detriment of my limited 
pocket-money. "Billy" Morris, the "bones" of the com- 
pany, I think, was one of the well-known figures of Boston. 
He was a tall man, with the largest black mustache I ever 
saw on a human being. He dressed in the most resplendent 
manner, with a huge diamond cluster pin in Ms shirt-front, 
and I used to stare at him, when I passed him in the street, 
with no little interest and admiration. He was most gor- 
geous and conspicuous in winter. Sleighing, when good, was 
one of the favorite winter amusements of Boston, and there 
was a great deal of racing on the old Brighton Road, where 
some very fast trotting was indulged in. That road on a 
good day was one of the sights of the town, and we boys used 
often to go there either legally in a family sleigh or on foot, 
or quite illegally by "cutting on behind" the sleighs of other 
people. All the sporting men and owners of fast horses 
were there to be seen, but none was so brilliant as "Billy" 
Morris in black furs driving a very fast horse, and with his 
great mustache, which looked like part of the furs, visible 
from a long distance. 

All that I have thus far written of my early theatrical 
experiences relates to the period preceding that supposed 
to be covered by this chapter, and it was also before 1860 
that an event happened which gave me the unusual oppor- 
tunities of which I spoke at the outset. The Boston Theatre 



96 EARLY MEMORIES 

was built in 1853-54 by a company composed wholly, I 
think ; of gentlemen who desired to have a place where operas, 
for the performance of which no suitable building then ex- 
isted, could be given. The return to the shareholders on their 
investment was to be in the form of seats, as is the case with 
many opera-houses. The subscribers carried out their proj- 
ect on the most generous scale and built one of the largest 
theatres in the world. It seated over three thousand peo- 
ple, and had a really superb stage, exceeding in width and 
depth, I believe, any then existing. The theatre was also 
amply provided with lobbies and foyers, and possessed 
two large exits on a level with the street. The acoustic 
properties were perfect; Joseph Jefferson said, when he 
first tried it for "Rip Van Winkle," that he could "hear 
his whisper creep round the walls." The proprietors, 
knowing that it would have to be both theatre and opera- 
house, built it without boxes in order to save space. The 
new theatre was, in fact, everything that it should have been, 
but it did not succeed. Boston could only support grand 
opera for a few weeks even at the comparatively modest 
prices of those days, and for a stock company, which, after 
the prevailing fashion, was to occupy the stage during the 
rest of the year, it was far too large and could not be filled by 
them sufficiently to pay. At all events, whatever the reason, 
the theatre fell into financial difficulties. In this state of 
affairs my father was chosen president of the board of di- 
rectors, and although, like every one else, he only owned a 
few shares, and although he was already burdened with too 
many heavy business cares, he threw himself into the work 
of saving the theatre with his wonted zeal and energy. 

His theory was that the only way to make the theatre 
self-sustaining was to let it out to the travelling companies 
for a few weeks at a time, and especially to those which pro- 
duced pantomimes, melodramas, or spectacles requiring a 



BOYHOOD— MY LAST SCHOOL: 1860-1867 97 

large stage. In this way he thought that the theatre could 
be maintained at the minimum of expense and with an as- 
surance of a constant variety which would fill the house. 
As with most innovations, there was an anxious period at 
the outset, but some time before he died the theatre was pay- 
ing, and the same system pursued under subsequent owner- 
ship has made it very profitable down to the present day. 
My father's thus taking control of the theatre not only 
gave me free entrance to all performances and to the direct- 
ors' box, but enabled me to extend my operations to every 
part of the theatre. Together with my friend Sturgis 
Bigelow, who had tastes in this respect just like my own, I 
quickly established close alliances with all the employees of 
the theatre, and especially with the keeper of the stage-door 
and the property-man, so that we were soon as familiar 
behind the scenes as in front of the curtain. One of the 
companies most popular at that period was a hybrid or- 
ganization which combined circus and drama— drama of a 
large, scenic, and spectacular kind in which horses played a 
conspicuous part. The performance opened with a regular 
circus, for the stage was large enough to accommodate a 
ring, and then followed the play. The two plays I remem- 
ber best were the "Cataract of the Ganges" and "Tippoo 
Sahib." The former culminated in the heroine's escape 
from the wicked priests by way of the falls, down which 
real water flowed and which nature had arranged with low 
steps so that an educated horse could gallop up them. 
'Tippoo Sahib" was a thrilling presentation of the crim- 
inal career of that monarch, including live elephants in the 
procession, and the final capture of his stronghold by a 
charge of cavalry after the manner of Lord Peterborough's 
famous exploit in Spain, only more exact and realistic. 
These dramatic works I witnessed many times, but the 
occasion I remember best was at a performance of the 



98 EARLY MEMORIES 

" Cataract of the Ganges," when Bigelow and I hid ourselves 
behind the canvas statue of some Indian god and watched 
the scene in the cave from that point of vantage, peeping 
out around the edges of the flat and deceptive deity to look 
at the audience. 

We also took advantage of our opportunities not only 
by wandering about behind the scenes, examining the stage 
machinery and learning to make thunder and red fire, but 
by seeing some excellent plays and much good acting. 
There was at that period (1861-63) a very strong company 
organized by Henry Jarrett and also an independent com- 
bination formed by some of the best actors of the day who 
divided the profits among themselves and were not engaged 
or controlled by any manager. In these two companies 
were John Gilbert and Mark Smith, J. W. Wallack and E. 
L. Davenport, L. R. Shewell, George Vandenhoff, W. R. 
Blake, Thomas Placide, John E. Owens, William Wheatleigh, 
who played the young heroes, Mrs. Barrow, Mrs. Skerritt, 
and others. They were all good actors and brought out 
the old comedies and some more recent ones with an even- 
ness of excellence which is very rare. I then saw not only 
the "School for Scandal," "The Rivals," and "She Stoops 
to Conquer," which may still be seen at intervals even now, 
but many others like "Speed the Plough," "The Heir at 
Law," "London Assurance," "Jane Shore," "Money," 
"The Poor Gentleman," "The Toodles," "The Serious 
Family," "The Hunchback," "The Road to Ruin," and 
"Wild Oats," all of which I am sorry to say seem to have 
disappeared entirely. I also saw, but not at that time, 
"A New Way to Pay Old Debts," with Davenport as Sir 
Giles Overreach. He played the part better than any one 
except Booth, and quite as well, I think, as Booth. It was a 
good bit of education to have seen all these old comedies 
well given before their final departure from the stage, for 



BOYHOOD— MY LAST SCHOOL: 1860-1867 99 

they possessed, as a rule, literary as well as dramatic merit, 
and literature is more conspicuous by its absence than by 
its presence on the popular stage of to-day. There are, of 
course, good modern plays, quite equal to and often better 
than many of these old comedies, but they do not command 
the popular stage to the same degree as the old comedies 
did in my boyhood. This I think is true in England as well 
as in the United States, although it must be confessed that 
our theatres have sunk lower, certainly have declined, in 
the character of their performances more universally than 
the English. 

At the same time Wheatleigh brought out the first part 
of "Henry IV," taking the part of Prince Hal himself, and 
with Hackett as Falstaff— the best Falstaff of the day. I 
remember few plays which interested me more as a boy, 
and I wish it were played oftener. It connects itself in 
my mind also with the excitement of the war-time. On 
every bill and poster announcing the play were printed the 
King's words after the fight at Shrewsbury: 

" Rebellion in the land shall lose his sway, 
Meeting the check of such another day. 
And since this business so fair is done, 
Let us not leave till all our own be won." 

When delivered on the stage these lines were greeted with 
rounds of applause, and in the same way the audiences 
would receive with cheers and shouts the King's fierce utter- 
ance in "Richard III": 

"Cold friends to me! 
What do they in the north, 
When they should serve their sovereign in the west?" 

Less thrilling but veiy amusing was John E. Owens as 
"Solon Shingle," an excellent bit of character acting. 



100 EARLY MEMORIES 

It was at about this same time that I saw Forrest as 
"Metamora." He impressed me deeply in the part of the 
noble savage, and I did not mind his rant or his marked 
mannerisms. He was a very striking-looking man, large, 
powerful, with a voice of great depth and compass. His 
faults were obvious enough, in fact everything about him 
was obvious, and he was generally condemned by my elders, 
to whose opinion I deferred and from whom I concealed 
my admiration for the chief of the Wampanoags. But 
when I saw him in later years, although he was then an old 
man, I perceived that despite his ranting and his crudity, 
due to lack of training, he was a really great actor of un- 
usual force and power. Altogether these remembrances of 
the stage are among the pleasantest and most vivid of my 
boyhood, and I am glad that I had such large opportunities 
in that direction. 

There was also one incident, not theatrical, connected 
with the Boston Theatre which interested me greatly at the 
time. It was there that the ball was given to the Prince of 
Wales when he came to Boston, and my father, being presi- 
dent of the board of directors and responsible for the build- 
ing, was, of course, most anxious that all should go well. 
He went early to see that everything was right, and in this 
way I was able to see the theatre and all the decorations 
before any one arrived. It really looked very well, I think, 
and it certainly seemed very splendid to my inexperienced 
eyes. The whole pit was floored over, making, with the 
stage, an immense ballroom, and the galleries were profusely 
decorated with flags and flowers. I was allowed to stay 
and witness the entrance of the royal party and the opening 
of the ball by the prince, a fair-haired boy, who seemed to 
me altogether too simple in appearance, for I had expected 
robes and crowns, the kings with whom I was acquainted 
on the stage and in books usually appearing either with 



BOYHOOD— MY LAST SCHOOL: 1860-1867 101 

those adornments or else in full armor. As I remember no 
more of the festivity, I imagine that at this point I was sent 
home to bed. 

In addition to the drama, legitimate and otherwise, my 
friends and I were unfailing attendants at the performances 
of all the jugglers and conjurers who came to the city. I 
remember particularly "Professor" Anderson, "The Wizard 
of the North," who had a vast amount of machinery and 
paraphernalia and very little sleight of hand, and the elder 
Hermann, who was just the reverse. From watching Her- 
mann we learned, after long practice, to throw or scale cards. 
He was able to throw a card from the stage into the top 
gallery of the Boston Theatre, a really remarkable feat of 
strength and dexterity. It was at this time, too, that Doctor 
Bigelow took Sturgis Bigelow and me to see Artemus Ward 
with his panorama, and hear him lecture. I remember 
Artemus Ward with great vividness; his rather pale face, 
his slightly delicate look, the large mustache, the very 
quiet manner, and the perfect solemnity with which he 
said the most amusing and most ridiculous things. His 
writings I had read, laughed at, and admired, and his per- 
sonal appearance and manner enhanced his humor and puns. 
He was a true humorist, and unlike most of those who had 
a brief notoriety and success at the time is still readable, for 
there was in some things that he said a touch of the humor 
which is eternal because it pertains to human nature and is 
not concerned merely with the events of the passing day. 

But theatres were not my only interest apart from sports 
and outdoor amusements. Although in common with many 
young gentlemen of my own age I exercised extraordinary 
diligence in getting through school with as little mental effort 
and as large an evasion of rules and discipline as possible, 
yet I did not leave my mind wholly unemployed. If a good 
fairy stood by my cradle she conferred upon me one gift 



102 EARLY MEMORIES 

which has been a great possession to me all my life and which 
grows even more precious as age begins to settle down. That 
gift was a love of books and of reading. It is a solitary habit, 
but it was a very fixed one with me and always indulged in 
without restriction when I was alone. I have already spoken 
of the delight I experienced in reading the Waverley Novels 
when I was nine years old, and from that I proceeded to 
many other works, great and small. I read, of course, the 
current "boys' books" by Mayne Reid and Ballantyne, by 
Kingston and "Oliver Optic," and others to whom I am 
indebted for many happy hours. "Robinson Crusoe" and 
the "Swiss Family Robinson" I read over and over again, 
and prized them both equally, I think, my literary judgment 
being still undeveloped. All fairy stories, from the "Arabian 
Nights" down, were read many times, and likewise Haw- 
thorne's "Tanglewood Tales" and "Wonderbook," as well 
as Bulfinch's "Age of Chivalry" and "Age of Fable," four 
volumes from which I really gathered some knowledge of 
Greek mythology and of the Arthurian legend. Cooper I 
read thoroughly, and I did not then find him verbose and 
diffuse. Leatherstocking was of course one of my heroes. 
I read all of Dickens, and "David Copperfield" was one of 
my favorite books, that is the first part ; the last part rather 
bored me except when it came to the death of Steerforth, 
the downfall of Uriah, and the triumph of Micawber. All 
of Marryat's books and Irving's "Tales of the Alhambra" 
and the "Chronicle of Wolfert's Roost" were very dear to 
me, but anything in the form of a story had an irresistible 
attraction. These books which I have mentioned were all 
permitted works, but I also managed to read surreptitiously 
"Jack Sheppard," by Ainsworth, who is described by the 
worthy Mr. Allibone as the "Tyburn Plutarch," and "Pere- 
grine Pickle," old copies of which I found among some books 
at Nahant. 



BOYHOOD-MY LAST SCHOOL: 1860-1867 103 

There was also another kind of forbidden fruit in the 
literary orchard which I gathered freely, and pretended 
to enjoy, simply, I think, because it was forbidden. These 
prohibited works were the dime novels published in vivid 
orange colors by Mr. Beadle and another series known as 
Novelettes, large although thin quarto pamphlets, dressed 
out in vivid colors very arresting to the gaze of the small 
boy. The former dealt chiefly with frontier life and deadly 
combats with "redskins"; the latter were a far-off echo of 
the Valois novels of Dumas, and were peopled with gentle- 
men in the costume attributed to Charles II, and by ladies 
dressed in the Victorian fashion, like the characters in "La 
Traviata" as presented in those days. Both series were 
quite harmless; they could not have brought a blush to any 
cheek, least of all to that of a boy; and the objection to 
them on the part of parents and guardians was merely be- 
cause they had never read them. As a rule they were sen- 
sational and extravagant, and being destitute of art or 
imagination were really dull. Secretly I thought so at the 
time, and much preferred the permitted stories of Scott 
and Cooper, Defoe, Marryat, Dickens, and Poe. But I 
would not have confessed my real opinion for worlds, because 
it was felt to be fine and manly and a little wicked to read, 
with dark precautions, these quite uninteresting but en- 
ticingly forbidden books. 

Stories and fiction were not, however, all my reading, 
although they formed the staple of it. My grandfather had 
a strong taste for travels and voyages, and among his books 
I read Mungo Park and Captain Reilly's narrative. He 
also bought all the new books of travel and exploration. 
Kane's expedition to the North Pole had excited great in- 
terest, and I well remember the talk about it and about the . 
book which followed. Livingstone's first volume also ap- 
peared about that time, as well as Gerard's "Lion Hunter" 



104 EARLY MEMORIES 

and Barth's "Travels in Africa." The last is a formidable 
work — I still have it — but I read a good deal of it and much 
enjoyed the pictures ; as I did still more those in Perry's 
"Expedition to Japan/' which I looked over again and again. 
These early studies in the literature of African discovery 
caused me to take a keen interest in Du Chaillu's gorillas 
when his collection was exhibited in Boston not long after- 
wards. There was at that time much doubt felt as to the 
veracity of his narrative and the genuineness of his collec- 
tion, but the explorations of later years have fully confirmed 
and justified all that he wrote, and show that the doubts 
expressed were as unjust as they were ill founded. 

I loved ballads and Homeric poetry of any and every 
kind. I cannot say how many times I read Scott's poems, 
especially "Marmion" and "The Lady of the Lake." I 
also read " Richard III " and parts of the other plays, as well 
as "Don Quixote," because I saw my father reading them 
so often; but "Richard" and "Don Quixote" I really liked 
and they took a strong hold on my imagination. My father 
and grandfather had a fairly large library, and I wandered 
about in it on rainy days looking into books, examining pic- 
tures when there were any, and reading wherever a passage 
caught my vagrant attention. I have always been grateful 
to Doctor Johnson for his defence of "desultory reading," 
and I think that most of the education which I picked up in 
those days was obtained from my own unaided efforts in that 
direction. One piece of really important reading I also 
accomplished at that time, and accomplished thoroughly, 
owing to an accident. To mitigate the rigors of com- 
pulsory attendance at church I made a treaty with my 
mother that if I sat quiet I might read the Bible instead 
of listening to the sermon. The treaty thus ratified was 
easily executed, for the high-backed pews of the old Brat- 
tle Street Church were well adapted both to concealment 



BOYHOOD— MY LAST SCHOOL: 1860-1867 105 

and to study. It was a fine old eighteenth-century church 
with a square tower, in which was imbedded a cannon-ball 
said to have been fired and lodged there by the American 
batteries at the siege of Boston. The interior was in the 
classical style of Wren, much in vogue in the province in 
the days of Anne and the first Georges. A huge mahogany 
pulpit, the gift of John Hancock, towered up darkly in the 
centre of what would have been called the chancel in any 
other than a Puritan church. I remember well the occasion 
when the Reverend Cyrus Bartol, veiy small and thin, with 
a shrill voice, popped up one Sunday from the depths of the 
great pulpit, and with hardly more than his head showing 
over the edge piped out his text: "Lo, it is I! Be not 
afraid." Very few preachers, however, gave rise to such 
pleasant incidents, and most of the sermons (the church 
was then Unitarian) were long and serious, and although no 
doubt often able, were rather beyond the capacity and atten- 
tion of a boy. In this way, however, my biblical studies 
began, for I regret to say that, speaking frankly, the Bible 
was not a form of reading which I should have voluntarily 
selected if it had not been so much better than sitting silent 
in uncomfortable restlessness while some one preached. 
Thus it came to pass, at all events, that I read the Bible 
thoroughly from beginning to end, "bating the Apocrypha," 
as a countryman said in some now forgotten story of my 
youth, which Apocrypha, lacking unfortunately in my edi- 
tion, was, if I had only known it, the repository of some of 
the best and most charming of the biblical stories. I have 
never quite understood why the books of the Apocrypha 
were not intrinsically as much entitled to a place among 
the canonical books as many now found there. Much of 
the Bible naturally I did not then understand, much I 
found wearisome; but the historical books, full of fighting 
and of battle, murder and sudden death, all the beautiful 



106 EARLY MEMORIES 

stories and the Four Gospels, the most beautiful of all, 
became to me a great delight. I do not know that my 
morals or my religious views were improved, as they no 
doubt should have been, by this course of reading, but I 
am certain that I became familiar with persons and stories 
which are part of the life and thought of our race, and that 
reading over and over again all that splendid English could 
not but have had some unconscious effect even upon a boy 
and may have bred in him a respect for the noble language 
which was perhaps his best inheritance. 

Such in outline, traced not for criticism or analysis, but 
merely as a picture of life at the time, were the occupations 
and amusements which made up existence for me in those 
days. But my first years at Mr. DixwelTs school were 
darkened by two sorrows which fell upon my family and 
brought sharply home to me the serious nature of life. In 
September, 1862, my father, worn out and broken down 
nervously by too much work, too many cares, and too many 
responsibilities, died suddenly. The blow fell like a bolt of 
lightning. He joked with me as I ate my supper, and then 
went up to his room, not feeling very well, and dropped 
dead. I can hear the murmur of the frightened servants, 
"Poor child!" as I made my way up-stairs. I can see him 
in his coffin; I can recall my being sent to Mrs. Guild's 
house to be out of the way of all the dark necessities of such 
a time. I can see the crowded church at his funeral and all 
the poor people whom he had helped standing in the aisles. 
I was overwhelmed with grief and did not comprehend what 
had happened. Not until long afterwards did I know what 
a loss it had been to me at twelve years of age. Then I 
recovered with the elasticity of childhood, although I re- 
mained deeply conscious of a great blank in my life. 

I will venture to give here two letters in regard to my 
father from men who knew him intimately, and which may 



BOYHOOD— MY LAST SCHOOL : 1860-1867 107 

serve to show what was thought of him by others who were 
not bound to him by the close ties of family affection as I 
was. 

Boston, 14th Sept., '62. 

MY DEAR MRS. LODGE — 

You cannot doubt how sincerely I have grieved with you and 
your family. I have lost a friend, true and firm. There are few 
losses greater. 

I am so glad that I saw him on Wednesday last and had such 
a pleasant conversation with him, so gentle, kind and hospitable, 
which I can never forget. 

I shall go to the Church tomorrow, and wish that I could do 
anything to testify my sympathy with you and my respect for 
his memory. 

May God bless you and comfort you in this great affliction 
and keep fresh the recollection of those manly virtues and affec- 
tions for which he was remarkable. 

Believe me 

dear Mrs. Lodge 
Ever sincerely yours 

Charles Sumner. 

Vienna 

Oct 28 1862 

MY DEAR ANNA, 

Mary wrote to you by the first post that left this place for 
America after we had received the sad news which has plunged 
your household in affliction. You can well believe that she most 
deeply regrets her inability to be with you in this trying hour, as 
it seems to her almost unnatural that she should be away from you 
and from your father in a time of distress. 

I think you will not object to a few words of sincere and heart- 
felt sympathy from me, although I am perfectly aware that all 
words are idle, and there is no consoler but Time for such a grief 
as yours. I claim however, a portion of your sorrow, for never 
since I had first the pleasure of making your husband's acquaint- 
ance, has there been anything but kindness between us, and, I 
trust, mutual regard and esteem. 

I can at least answer for myself that I always entertained the 



108 EARLY MEMORIES 

most sincere respect for his many admirable qualities, that I 
ever valued his friendship, and that it gives me now a true consola- 
tion for his loss to reflect that never from first to last, have I had 
a moment's misunderstanding with him or a word of unkindness, 
and that I and mine have treasured in our memories a long list 
of deeds of disinterested and most active friendship toward us. 

I claim to have had as true an appreciation of him as any one 
out of the immediate circle of his nearest relatives. I never saw 
more self devotion, more inexhaustible friendship than that of 
which he was capable — as I am sure your father and your dear 
mother always so thoroughly believed. 

I can hardly now accept the fact that all that zeal, energy 
and intelligent activity has been so suddenly suspended, nor do I 
comprehend how you, or your children or your father can exist 
without that constant and untiring care with which he seemed to 
envelop you all. 

Others can do better justice to his honour, intelligence and his 
fortunate intrepidity in the commercial pursuits to which he de- 
voted his outside life, but I for one can bear witness to his virtues 
in the interior life, which is so much more important to our hap- 
piness. I feel that I too have lost a friend, and a most valued one, 
in this calamity which has stricken you and most deeply do I 
regret that I cannot be at home at this moment, to do my best to 
comfort your father, who has always been as kind as a father to 
me, and whom I honestly love like a son. 

I think it would be a relief to him to talk with one, who so 
sincerely appreciated your departed husband, over his many 
manly virtues — and I am sure that if Mary could be with you all, 
you would find a sympathy which could never fail you. I will 
say no more, perhaps it had been as well if I had said nothing, 
for what are words, especially written ones to alleviate sorrow. I 
don't dare to think of Lillie's grief, any more than of her mother's 
or grandfather's. Poor child, I am aware that she idolized her 
father — and for the best of reasons. 

Good bye and God bless you. I trust that God will enable you 
to bear the blow with fortitude and that Time will mitigate your 
grief. Give my best love and sincerest sympathy to your father. 
Mary and Lily join me in words of affection to all and I remain 
ever most sincerely your friend 

J. L. Motley 



BOYHOOD— MY LAST SCHOOL : 1860-1867 109 

Two years later, in 1864 ; my grandfather died. He was 
nearly eighty-two, and his last years were years of suffering. 
His mind remained perfectly clear; he was as kind and 
gentle as ever, he never complained, but he grew more 
silent and the end came peacefully. He was too old to 
have been as near to me as my father was, but I missed him 
greatly, and although I could not then put the thought into 
words, I knew that a very- noble and gracious presence had 
gone from my little world. 

The year after my father's death was made memorable 
to me by my first journey. In 1863 we went to New York, a 
great event to me, and stayed there some time. We went to 
a hotel, now vanished, the Saint Nicholas. Far down-town 
it would seem now, but then, although fashion was already 
pushing up beyond Madison Square, it was not yet wholly 
in the business quarter, as the block which it largely occupied 
is to-day. Sturgis Bigelow happened to be there at the 
same time, and the two idle schoolboys together enjoyed 
themselves very well after their own fashion. We took full 
advantage of the opportunity for varied eating offered by a 
hotel on the "American plan," then nearly universal, and 
gorged ourselves on every possible occasion like young boa- 
constrictors. We passed our days chiefly in wandering up 
and down Broadway, looking into the shops and also into 
a disgusting exhibition called "Kahn's Medical Museum," 
which I wonder should have been permitted to open its doors 
for the delectation of boys. We also went much to a more 
innocent place, Barnum's Museum, then situated where the 
Herald Building afterwards stood, on the corner of Broad- 
way facing north toward the City Hall Park. We found our 
way to the Battery, at one end of the city, and to Central 
Park, then quite new, at the other. But our chief pleasure 
was the theatre, to which we were allowed to go in the eve- 
ning, as there was no school necessitating early rising. 



110 EARLY MEMORIES 

Almost opposite our hotel was "Bryant's Minstrels/' 
brilliant at night with the name in colored lights made by a 
series of small cups filled, I think, with oil. Some of these 
were always being blown out, but the general effect was 
veiy satisfying to our simple tastes, and we frequented the 
performances to which we were so radiantly invited. Just 
above our hotel, on the other side of Broadway, was Niblo's 
Garden, a famous theatre in those days, and veiy far up- 
town as it then seemed was " Wallack's," where was gathered 
the best stock company in the country, headed by Lester 
Wallack himself, an admirable actor, and where we saw 
some really good plays. 

The following summer we took another journey, which 
seemed to me a very extensive one indeed. We went to 
Trenton Falls, now ruined by conversion into power, and 
thence to Niagara. At Trenton I had an adventure which 
nearly terminated my promising career. In company with 
a Mr. Rand I walked far up the river gorge above the prin- 
cipal falls. It was a beautiful walk by the side of the dark- 
brown, swift-rushing stream, but very hard going over the 
rocks, and we decided to climb up the steep cliffs which 
formed the side of the ravine, where we then were, and re- 
turn to the hotel by the road above. Each of us started at 
a different point and proceeded to scramble up. I got 
nearly to the top very successfully when the little ledge of 
rock or earth upon which I had put my foot suddenly gave 
way. It was a bad quarter of a minute, because below me 
was a sheer drop of considerable height down to the rocks of 
the river. Luckily for me a small tree grew outward from 
the edge of the cliff just above me. I grasped it desperately 
with a sickening doubt as to whether it would give way. 
Fortunately it held as I hung to it with both hands, swing- 
ing over space, and then it was easy to draw my light 
weight up, get astride of it, and scramble in to the top of 



BOYHOOD— MY LAST SCHOOL: 1860-1867 111 

the cliff. I was a badly frightened boy when I rolled over 
on the grass and looked down into the ravine below. My 
companion had had no difficulty. Boylike, I had selected 
the shortest, most perpendicular, and most dangerous route 
with a cheerful confidence in my powers of climbing any- 
thing and with no knowledge of the importance of footholds 
on the face of cliffs where rock gradually merges in earth. 

From Trenton we went to Niagara, which I explored 
thoroughly and enjoyed immensely, but I have read too 
many "first impressions" of the great falls to attempt to 
add my own. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE WAR: 1860-1865 

I could not in the last chapter say anything of the ter- 
rible ordeal through which the country was passing during 
my first four years at Mr. Dixwell's school. It was too great 
and too solemn to be mixed up with random memories of 
boyish sports and school experiences. It was overshadowing 
then, even to a boy. I do not mean to say that people did 
not go about their business and that boys did not learn 
their lessons and play their games through all those weary 
years just as the people of Paris went about their own little 
round of labor and filled the theatres nightly during the 
Reign of Terror. The daily life of men, the common cares 
and toils of existence, are the hardest things in the world to 
stop. Nothing less than absolute destruction by nature or by 
man can arrest them for more than a few hours. But while 
the Civil War was raging it was certain that no one forgot 
it and that its shadow hung dark over the land. I was only 
ten years old when the war began, only fourteen when it 
ended, and yet in the history of that great period of conflict, 
it has seemed to me that the impressions of a boy, living 
safe-sheltered in a city and a State where no enemy ever 
set his foot, are not without importance, because everything 
which may serve to explain or characterize or illustrate a 
struggle so momentous ought to have some value to those 
of the future who would seek the truth about the past. 

My people had been from the foundation of the govern- 

112 



THE WAR: 1860-1865 113 

ment Federalists and Whigs. My grandfather, Mr. Cabot, 
and my father were both Whigs, but had left their party 
after Mr. Webster's 7th of March speech, although in my 
grandfather's case it was, as I have said before, the rupture 
of a lifelong friendship. They became "Free-Soilers," for 
they were both strongly opposed to slavery, my father ex- 
tremely so because he had lived many years in New Orleans, 
engaged in business there, and had imbibed, from close 
observation, an intense hatred of the system. The old 
negro servant whom he had bought and set free was a 
living witness to this experience in his life and was also 
one of the cheerful recollections of my childhood. When 
the Republican party was formed my grandfather and 
father both joined it and supported Fremont and Dayton 
in 1856. My father had never taken part in politics, but 
he was so profoundly stirred by the slavery question that 
he went down to the wharves where his ships were lying 
and made a speech to the sailors, longshoremen, and steve- 
dores in behalf of Fremont. My first political recollection 
is that I "hollered for Fremont," which is all I now remem- 
ber of that campaign. Four years later, in 1860, 1 remember 
a great deal more. I had heard Mr. Sumner talk much at 
our dinner-table; I had been with my father to see him at 
his house in Hancock Street, I think soon after the John 
Brown raid, about which I had been told a great deal and 
which excited my imagination; and I knew well how deeply 
my father was interested in the success of Lincoln. So I 
wore a Lincoln badge and was told by some of my play- 
fellows, in accents of deep scorn, that my father was a 
"black Republican" and a friend of Charles Sumner, and 
I suppose that I retorted in kind. 

The struggle in Massachusetts, so far as I knew of it, 
was between Lincoln and Hamlin, on the one side, and Bell 
and Everett, who were the candidates of what remained of 



114 EARLY MEMORIES 

the Whig party, 1 once all-powerful in the State, on the other. 
There were also Douglas Democrats and pro-slavery Demo- 
crats, but of these I knew nothing beyond believing that all 
pro-slavery Democrats were criminals of the darkest dye. 
The fact is that the Democrats, never very strong in our 
State, were divided, and although the Douglas Democrats 
polled more votes than the conservative Whigs, who hated 
the slavery agitation, the latter were still strong with peo- 
ple of property and the business interests. Mr. Everett, a 
great orator and one of the most distinguished and respected 
of our public men, also brought local support to the ticket 
which bore his name. I think a majority of the boys whom 
I knew were for Bell and Everett, but Lincoln carried the 
State overwhelmingly. Respectable Boston, for the most 
part, was out of step at the moment of the crisis and before 
the final division was declared, but Massachusetts, as usual, 
was right at the crucial moment. 

The event which I remember most vividly in that cam- 
paign was the great Republican torchlight procession of 
the "Wide-awake Clubs" just before the election. The 
Common, where they assembled, was a sea of tossing lights, 
very striking to look upon, and made an even sharper mark 
in my memory than the long march past with the banners 
and transparencies, the fireworks and the cheers, all of which 
I thoroughly enjoyed and from which I sagely concluded 
that we should win, because we had a longer procession and 
made more noise than the Whigs. I have since come very 
clearly to the conclusion that no more idiotic way of carry- 
ing on a political campaign was ever devised than that of 
torchlight processions, marching clubs, red fire, and rockets, 
with all their noise and waste of money. I am happy to 
say that this silly habit is apparently disappearing, and will, 

1 It was called the "Constitutional Union Party," but it was chiefly com- 
posed of former Whigs. 



THE WAR: 1860-1865 115 

I trust ; soon be entirely extinct. But in 1860 the idea was 
comparatively new, and the whole thing was done with 
real enthusiasm and gave a vent for the excitement of the 
time which was anything but perfunctory. The torches of 
the "Wide-awakes" flashed against a darkened sky, their 
cheers rang out across a troubled air. Men knew that the 
country was driving forth upon a stormy sea, and the wisest 
could not shape the course or guess the future. Every one 
felt the pressure of coming events, and most of those who 
carried torches soon exchanged them for muskets and rifles, 
which proved more illuminating in certain dark places of 
the earth than the torches they replaced. 

I do not intend to trace the histoiy of the war as I know 
that history now. I shall merely try to tell what I remem- 
ber, and my recollections are of scattered events with long 
blanks between. My object is not to give my history of 
the Civil War and my views upon it, but simply, so far as 
I can, to show how it struck a contemporary of ten to four- 
teen years of age. 

Of the terrible winter which followed the "Wide-awake" 
procession, when the country was in imminent danger of 
being wrecked through the treason and weakness of Bu- 
chanan and his cabinet before Lincoln could even have a 
chance to save it, I recall nothing except my father's anxiety 
and the fact that political talk was going on constantly 
about me. The first actual event which I really remember 
in 1861 was the firing upon Fort Sumter. I had heard of 
Major Anderson and had begun to look upon him as the 
hero of the time, so that the news that the fort had been 
fired upon and had surrendered filled me with sorrow and 
anger. That it was capable of affecting so strongly a boy 
not yet eleven years old shows, I think, how deeply that 
attack, by which the South deliberately plunged the coun- 
try into war, went home to the North. My simple hope 



116 EARLY MEMORIES 

and my one desire was that we should now go on fighting 
until we got that fort back, which, as a matter of fact, was 
exactly what we did. 

Then came the departure of the first troops from Boston, 
and I think that I heard Governor Andrew address them, 
but of this I am not sure, for I heard him speak to other 
regiments, and one memory is blurred by another. Gov- 
ernor Andrew I remember well at that time, although I 
cannot recall a word which I heard him utter. But the 
short, strong, sturdy figure with the square, massive head 
covered with tight curling light hair is very plain to me, as 
well as the feeling of awe and solemnity which came over 
me when I saw him speaking to the soldiers. All that he 
strove for and suffered and did, I know now, and now, too, 
I can understand the force and nobility of the man, but then 
it was only a deep impression of a leader, of a great and 
important person, which touched my young imagination. 
He had a powerful and emotional temperament, and as he 
was moved himself so he moved others, even a boy, without 
the boy's knowing why. Years afterwards Mr. Justice Gray 
told me a stoiy of Andrew which always seemed to me to 
define what manner of man he was better than anything 
else I ever heard. It was just after the war and Andrew 
was about to leave the governorship. He had lost his once 
large practice at the bar and had no resources, owing to his 
having sacrificed everything to his public service. This fact 
was generally known, and there had been some talk of giving 
him the collectorship of the port of Boston, which was a 
lucrative office. In summer, when the town was deserted, 
Governor Andrew was in the habit of lunching with Judge 
Gray, who lived near the State House, and there he came 
one day as usual. No one else was present. When they 
were seated at the table Judge Gray referred to the current 
rumor about the collectorship. Without a word of warning 



THE WAR: 1860-1865 117 

(I use Judge Gray's own expression) Andrew laid down his 
knife and fork ; looked at his host earnestly, and said: "I 
have stood as high-priest between the horns of the altar. 
I have poured out upon it the best blood of Massachusetts. 
I cannot take money for that." They were entirely alone, 
there was no audience, it was simply the expression of the 
man's nature in words and imagery at once instinctive and 
natural. Judge Gray added that no eloquence he had ever 
heard had moved him so much. Andrew indeed was one 
of the conspicuous figures of the war time, one of the great 
war governors who, like Morton in Indiana, did so much to 
sustain Lincoln and save the Union. I am glad to have 
seen him and to realize that he impressed me deeply, heed- 
less boy as I was. 

I knew nothing as to the first regiments when I saw them 
go from Boston. But there was one with which I soon be- 
came familiar, the famous Sixth Regiment, which was » 
mobbed in Baltimore. The first blood shed in battle in the 
American Revolution was that of Massachusetts men at 
Lexington and Concord. It was the fortune of the State to 
shed the first blood in the Civil War, and on the same day 
of the month, the 19th of April. When the regiment reached 
Baltimore it was obliged to march through the city in order 
to take the Washington train on the other side. On the 
way they were hooted and pelted, and when they reached 
the lower quarters of the city, which were intensely and 
bitterly Democratic, as well as secessionist, they were sav- 
agely assailed by a mob of roughs commonly known as the 
" Baltimore Plug Uglies," who used paving-stones and pistols. 
Four of the soldiers were killed and thirty-six wounded. 
The troops finally opened fire on the mob and forced their 
way through to the station with their bayonets, leaving 
their dead and the seriously wounded behind them. All 
this I remember, for I eagerly read the accounts and studied 
the wholly imaginary pictures of the fight in the street as 



118 EARLY MEMORIES 

portrayed in the rough wood-cuts of the illustrated papers. 
Most clearly of all do I recollect seeing photographs — very 
poor things in those days — of two of the soldiers killed by the 
mob. The photographs were of the small size common at 
that time and had been taken probably for some mother or 
sister or sweetheart before the poor fellows started out to 
save Washington. They came from Lowell, as I remember, 
and were young fellows, one only eighteen, but to the eyes 
of ten years old they looked like mature men, and I was not 
then aware that wars were usually fought by what I should 
now call boys. The pathos and tragedy of it all passed by 
me, but wrath did not. There had been real fighting, some 
Massachusetts men had been killed by a mob of pro-slavery 
Democrats, and rage filled my heart. I at once determined 
that I would enlist as a drummer, for I had gathered from 
my reading that such was the proper and conventional 
thing for a boy to do, and I pictured to myself the feats of 
gallantry I would perform as we made a victorious charge, 
for all the charges which I intended making with my regi- 
ment were to be victorious. I suppose nearly all boys of 
my age were filled with the same ambition at that time, for 
the war fever was burning fiercely and reached even the 
youngest. My plans for a military life, however, were not 
taken in either a favorable or even a serious spirit by my 
family, and I had to content myself with imagining desperate 
assaults and gallant exploits, from which I always escaped 
alive and glorious, a soothing exercise in which I frequently 
indulged, generally just before I dropped to sleep for the 
night. None the less, I am glad that I had those emotions 
and was moved and stirred by the pictures of the lads who 
fell at Baltimore. It is not much, but it is something to 
have had that feeling at a time when dangers thickened 
about the country and there was a great and noble passion 
moving among the people. 

Thirty-seven years later, in the spring, too, for the war 



THE WAR: 1860-1865 119 

with Spain was virtually declared by the resolution which 
passed Congress early on the morning of the fateful 19th of 
April, I went with my friend Mr. Justice Moody, of the 
Supreme Court, then a member of the House of Representa- 
tives, to Baltimore in order to meet the Sixth Massachusetts 
Regiment and see them pass through the city. Under the 
present arrangements they might have gone on without 
leaving the cars, but they abandoned the train outside the 
city and then marched to the southern station, taking the 
exact line which their predecessors had taken in 1861. We 
followed them along the whole route. They were cheered 
from beginning to end, in the poorer quarters as in the best, 
and flowers were thrown to them as they passed. It was 
"roses, roses all the way," and the scene was one I shall 
never forget. We managed to reach the station ahead of 
the troops, and saw them come in, cheered to the last, and 
just at the very spot where their predecessors had fought 
their way to safety with a fierce and baffled mob raging at 
their heels. It was a sight worth seeing, very moving, very 
impressive, but it seemed to me to show that the poor boys 
whose pictures I had gazed upon so many years before had 
not died in vain, and that the war with Spain, if it did nothing 
else, demonstrated once for all this great fact, and was in its 
turn not without value and meaning to the American people. 
The next event of 1S61 which stands out sharply in my 
memory was the shooting of Colonel Ellsworth at Alex- 
andria. He had entered a hotel to pull down a rebel flag, 
and the tavern-keeper, a man named Jackson, as I remem- 
ber, shot him without warning. It was murder, not war, 
and I recollect well the profoimd impression which was 
produced by this incident. Ellsworth was colonel of the 
New York Zouaves, a crack regiment; he was young, pop- 
ular, handsome. I remember his picture perfectly. Unim- 
portant as one death was in the great war then break- 



120 EARLY MEMORIES 

ing upon us, that particular murder and the manner of 
it, coming as it did at the very start, roused bitter feelings 
and stimulated greatly the fighting spirit of the North. I 
wished then that I had been there to take immediate and 
bloody revenge upon the innkeeper, who was shot down by 
one of the Zouaves, and who is so wholly obscure now that 
I cannot even be sure of his name, which then went far and 
wide throughout the country. 

I think this vividness of the first incidents of the war, 
and the blanks and the confusion which I find in my recol- 
lections of the following years, are owing simply to the fact 
that they were the first. The killing of two or three men 
in Baltimore in 1861 shook the countiy. Three or four 
years later engagements in which two or three hundred 
men were killed and wounded on each side were dismissed 
in a paragraph and described as skirmishes, as indeed they 
seemed to a people who had beheld the awful losses at 
Gettysburg and Chancellorsville, at Shiloh, Fredericksburg, 
or Cold Harbor. 

The first Bull Run I well remember, and I shall never 
forget the intense surprise and the real misery which it 
brought to me, but my only desire was to fight on and wipe 
out the disgrace. My boyish heart hardened under that 
blow, and, as I now see, the heart of the country hardened 
too, and men set themselves in dead earnest to carry on the 
grim work. After this the memories begin to blur and run 
together. I recall Island Number 10 and Donelson and 
Port Royal, victories which cheered the entire North. I 
remember the dreadful Sunday when the news came of 
some great defeat, and the way the churches were kept open 
and people assembled in them to collect and prepare lint 
and bandages and supplies to be sent at once to the army. 
Antietam I well recall, for many Massachusetts regiments 
suffered there severely, but I did not realize until I went 



THE WAR: 1860-1865 121 

over the battle-field years afterwards in company with Pres- 
ident McKinley what a bad position Lee had deliberately 
walked into and how completely McClellan had thrown away 
his opportunity. 

Of the Western battles I remember less, but I rejoiced 
in following the fighting which cleared the great rivers, and 
the names of Farragut and Porter, of Foote and Davis, and 
of their river victories were all familiar to me. Even more 
familiar and exciting was the fight between the Monitor 
and the Merrimac. The victory of the Monitor, for such it 
was in effect, was not only momentous, but, owing to the 
comparative size of the two vessels, had the attraction 
which dwells in the stories of the boys who fare forth into 
the world in search of adventure and slay huge giants and 
monstrous dragons. The performance of the Merrimac 
had most properly frightened the country thoroughly, and 
her repulse by the Monitor brought a corresponding sense 
of joy and relief. Some time afterwards, in connection with 
one of the fairs for the benefit of the Sanitary Commission, 
an arrangement was made for a presentation of the fight 
by miniature vessels. A portion of the Frog Pond was shut 
in and covered by a tent with a platform running round it 
for the spectators. Upon the sheet of water thus enclosed 
there came out a little Merrimac, propelled by steam, which, 
as I remember, rammed and sank two representatives of 
the Cumberland and the Congress. Then out darted the 
Monitor, and there was much firing of little guns until the 
Merrimac was withdrawn, sinking and crippled. I went to 
the first performance, and in addition to the sham fight, 
which I keenly enjoyed, the evening is memorable to me 
because it was the only occasion upon which I ever heard 
Edward Everett speak. He was then an old man, and it 
was not long before his death, but he made a little address 
explaining what we were about to see, and of course spoke 



122 EARLY MEMORIES 

of the war and the country. He was a fine-looking man with 
white hair, extremely dignified, yet entirely simple in his 
manner, and his account that evening of the famous fight 
made it all very clear and very exciting to at least one of 
his listeners. What I remember most clearly about him, 
however, was his beautiful voice and that, although he did 
not seem strong and spoke low and gently, eveiy word fell 
distinctly upon our ears. The tent was rather dimly lighted, 
the water looked very black and cold, and the whole scene, 
with Mr. Everett standing bareheaded by the rail, comes 
back to me now with a certain dramatic intensity born of 
the time, which brought emotions possible only in days like 
those. 

I remember well the terrible news of Fredericksburg 
and the rejoicings over Vicksburg and Gettysburg. The 
draft riots in Boston seemed to bring the war very near 
home, and I felt great pride in the fact that the officer at 
the Cooper Street Armory who fired the "whiff of grape 
shot" just at the right moment and blew the Boston riot 
out of existence was a kinsman of mine, Stephen Cabot. 
The naval battles at Mobile and New Orleans appealed 
strongly to a boy brought up among ships, as did "Sheri- 
dan's ride" to a lover of horses, but the movement which I 
followed most closely and with the deepest interest was Sher- 
man's march to the sea. Still keen is the remembrance of 
the blind rage with which I assailed our Democratic Irish 
groom, otherwise an intimate friend of mine, when he told 
me that Sherman would never get through. Then came the 
fall of Richmond, news announced by Mr. Dixwell when 
school was dismissed. The boys raced out up Boylston 
Street and on to the Common shouting at the top of their 
lungs, and found themselves quite in harmony with the rest 
of the population, which was by no means always the case. 

I have merely enumerated the great events as they stand 



THE WAR : 1860-1865 123 

recorded in my memory, with wide gaps between them, 
with no connection, and even in uncertain order. Were I 
to attempt to arrange them or describe them I should at 
once begin to mingle knowledge with remembrance, for my 
actual recollection of those days, although vivid, is neither 
well defined nor coherent. But such events as I have briefly 
catalogued sank deep into the mind even of a boy. To have 
been alive and in a sense a witness to such a mighty conflict 
as our Civil War left an ineffaceable impression, none the 
less lasting because it was unconscious. 

Yet the effect of the war on my mind and its influence 
upon me as a great educational force were not, I think, 
chiefly due to the accounts I read and the pictures I pored 
over of distant battles by sea and land. That which had 
most effect, as it seems to me now, was the atmosphere in 
which I lived. The war pervaded everything. You saw 
it in the streets, in the disappearance of silver and gold, 
in the early makeshifts for money, in the paper currency, 
in the passing soldiers, in the neighboring camps. You 
heard it in Andrew's voice addressing the regiments as they 
started for the South. No boy could forget Robert Shaw 
going out at the head of his black troops or General Bartlett 
riding by on his way to the front, one leg gone, and strapped 
to his saddle. Military companies were organized in all 
the schools and every boy was compelled to drill. Ours 
was the first, and we were organized and thoroughly drilled, 
as if it had now become a part of every American's regular 
education, so that when the time came he might be able 
to do his duty in a perpetual war. The war appeared in 
the theatres, where every sentence which could be twisted 
into a patriotic allusion was loudly cheered. The fairs to 
raise money for the Sanitary Commission became an insti- 
tution, and even the caps we wore were those made fashion- 
able by the Emperor of the French and used by our own 



124 EARLY MEMORIES 

officers until superseded by the much more sensible and 
practical Kossuth hats. But that which pressed most 
hardly was the anxiety for the living and the grief for those 
dead in battle. My father, as I have said in an earlier 
chapter, was eager to go to the war, and thought that he 
could serve efficiently in a cavalry regiment which he wished 
to raise himself. He was not only well past the military 
age, but, as I have already said, a big thoroughbred mare 
had recently fallen with him and injured his knee so that 
he could not be long in the saddle or walk much without 
great pain. The doctors pronounced his scheme to be 
utterly impossible, and he gave it up. After his death, in 
1862, there remained in the family only my grandfather, 
my mother, my sister, and myself, so that no one was able 
to go to the war from my own household, but every regi- 
ment took with it cousins, kinsmen, friends, young men, 
many of whom I had seen at my sister's parties. After 
every battle I used to hear in mournful tones: "So and So 
is killed" or "So and So is wounded." This reading the 
death-roll and scanning bulletins to see how many men 
whom you have known and cared for, whose people are 
your people and whose fate is dear to you, have been 
killed is not an experience that one ever forgets. At last 
it came very near to me, very near indeed by age and asso- 
ciation and habit of life. One of the older boys at our school 
was Huntington Wolcott, elder brother of Roger Wolcott, 
a lifelong friend of mine and later a distinguished governor 
of Massachusetts. In the last year of the war Huntington 
Wolcott could no longer be restrained; he was only seven- 
teen, but he secured a commission, went to the front, con- 
tracted a deadly camp-fever, was brought home, and died. 
The school went to the funeral and I saw him in his coffin, 
worn, haggard, aged, and yet still a boy, dressed in the 
uniform of the United States. This brought the war home 



THE WAR : 1860-1865 125 

to me as never before. I remember thinking as I went 
down the steps of the house that if the war lasted that was 
what would happen to me, a prospect which did not cheer 
me, for it never occurred to my mind — and I think I was 
like all other boys in this respect— that I should do any- 
thing but join the army as soon as I was old enough, be- 
cause four years is a long time at that age, and it seemed 
as if the country had always been and always would be at 
war. 

It was said in those days, and said truly, that boys fresh 
from college went into the army and came out grave and 
serious men. The mere passage of time was nothing. 
They had lived more and longer in those four years than 
most men in a whole lifetime. In a lesser degree much 
younger boys, more or less unconsciously no doubt, received 
an impression from those years of civil war and were then 
subjected to influences from which they never recovered 
and which affected unalterably their feeling about their 
country. I am sure that the men born since the Civil War 
are just as patriotic, just as ready to sacrifice themselves 
for their country, as those born before it. I should despair 
of the future if I did not think so. But the feeling about 
the country of those to whom the Civil War is not mere 
history, but a living memory, is, I am certain, a little differ- 
ent from that of any others. They actually saw the coun- 
try, however dimly, at death grips with a destroying antag- 
onist, reeling on the edge of an abyss. They knew that the 
country's life was at stake and they saw it emerge victorious. 
The sacrifice of life and treasure by which the victory was 
won was all about them and the news of battle was always 
ringing in their ears. In after-years they might forget 
much, but these things they could not forget, for a man 
fortunately does not often see his country's very existence 
at stake in war. And so, never forgetting the past, those 



126 EARLY MEMORIES 

who lived through the war times have a more tender senti- 
ment about their country, they are more easily moved by 
all that appeals to their sense of patriotism, and they are 
less dispassionate no doubt in judging America and the 
American people than others, just as they are more intolerant 
of those Americans who live abroad, ape foreign ways, and 
sneer at their own land and its people, for they know, they 
who remember, what it all cost and what a price the people 
once paid to save the country from those who sought to 
tear it asunder. 

The war left me, as I think it left those of my time gen- 
erally, with certain profound convictions which nothing can 
ever shake. It made me an optimist so far as the United 
States is concerned. I am well aware how much condi- 
tions have changed since 1861 ; the vast increase of wealth, 
the problems raised by the modern economic developments, 
the alteration in the character of the population owing to 
the flood of immigration, all these things are present to my 
mind, and I do not underestimate their gravity or the sin- 
ister possibilities which they suggest. Nor am I oblivious 
of the darkest sign of all, the way in which money and the 
acquisition of money by taking it from some one else through 
the process of law seems in the last analysis rampant in 
nearly every portion of the community, and at the bottom 
if not at the top of almost every proposed reform, every 
political issue, and every personal ambition. But none the 
less, and realizing all the grim suggestions of the present day, 
I have seen, without fully comprehending, I admit, but still 
I have seen, the nation come through the most terrible 
ordeal which any nation can undergo. I know what sac- 
rifices were then made in obedience to a great sentiment, 
and I have faith that the people who were capable of the 
Civil War will be able to meet any problems the future may 
have in store whenever they realize that the life of the 



THE WAR: 1860-1865 127 

nation and every tradition, every belief which has made it 
what it is, are at stake. 

Then, too, there were certain beliefs which were im- 
planted in me by the war, by what I saw and heard and by 
what I vaguely, but none the less deeply, felt, and these be- 
liefs I have never been able to change. The bitter hostility 
to the South and to Southerners which the mass of the North- 
ern people felt during the war, and which was as violent as it 
was crude in the breast of the average boy, has, of course, 
long since passed away. I am not only as eager for the 
welfare and prosperity of the South as I am for that of my 
own New England, but I have no word of reproach to utter; 
I have nothing but the most affectionate feeling toward 
them, as toward all my fellow-Americans. I recognize and 
admire the great military talents which they displayed, 
and the bravery and tenacity which they showed through 
four long years of desperate fighting. I feel as Mr. Charles 
Francis Adams felt when he replied to the Englishman who 
was thoughtfully pointing out to him just after a Union 
defeat how well the Southerners fought: "Yes, they too 
are Americans." The war was waged to make the country 
one, and it has always been my dearest wish to see it united 
in fact as well as in name, just as it has come to pass in my 
lifetime. 

I also quite understand the feeling of the Southerners 
in regard to the Civil War, and their desire to glorify all 
they did and to exalt their own heroes. It would be un- 
natural as well as disloyal to their past if they did not do 
those very things. But when we turn from the present to 
the past and from the South to the North the case is differ- 
ent. There has been in many quarters of late years in the 
North a great deal of sentiment in regard to the war and the 
South, much of which is generous and right, and some of 
which is maudlin and also most unjust to the Northern side. 



128 EARLY MEMORIES 

It is well for victors to be magnanimous, and much easier 
than for the vanquished; but it is somewhat worse than 
silly, in the search for magnanimity, to abandon your own 
cause, which you believe was righteous, and practically 
admit that you ought to seek forgiveness for winning. 

There is not a man in the South to-day who would dis- 
solve the Union or establish slavery if he could, but neverthe- 
less every man there glorifies continually the men who tried, 
at an appalling expense of life and treasure, to effect both 
these results and who failed in their attempt. This con- 
tradiction is complete but wholly natural, and we should 
think ill of the Southern people if they did not behave 
in exactly that way. Yet that which is most praiseworthy 
in Southerners is discreditable in a Northerner, and in the 
war time was defined by a harsher and more truthful 
epithet. I make every allowance for the fear of not appear- 
ing magnanimous and for the cheap temptation of being 
considered an independent and original thinker which ta- 
king the side of one's opponents at a safe distance in history 
always holds out to certain minds hungry for notice. I 
know that "lost causes" invariably gather about them 
romance and sentiment as the years go by simply because 
they were lost, and therefore no one has had the chance of 
bringing them to the hard test of experience, as is the fate 
of the cause which succeeds. From the time of Mary 
Stuart until the "45" the Stuart family were an unmiti- 
gated curse to England and Scotland, and if either in power 
or in exile they did anything which was of any value to the 
people of Great Britain and Ireland history does not dis- 
close it. They were picturesque, sometimes tragic, occa- 
sionally gallant figures, but at the same time as worthless 
a race as the ill fortune of a nation ever put upon a throne. 
None the less, all the romance and glamour, all the sympathy 
and sentiment of posterity, are lavished upon them, while 



THE WAR: 1860-1865 129 

the great Puritans who saved England from despotism and 
the great Whigs who brought in the house of Hanover and 
rescued England a second time find justice only at the hands 
of serious historians, who not only tell the truth, but who 
think straight. 

The "lost cause" of the South will probably never 
gather such a mass of sentiment about it as that of the 
Jacobites, because it was infinitely more respectable as well 
as more honorable, and was defended with a force, intelli- 
gence, and courage which justly obtained the admiration of 
the world. But it will still have the advantage in sympathy 
and sentiment which inheres in all lost causes, simply, as I 
have said, because they have been "lost." With that sen- 
timent in the South it would be worse than churlish to 
quarrel. One can only sympathize with and respect it. 
On the other hand, much can be forgiven to the desire of the 
victor to be generous, but when the men of the North begin 
to argue in behalf of the Southern cause in serious fashion 
our sense of justice revolts. 

One of the events of my early life which I best remem- 
ber was when I was roused very early on an April morning 
and was told that Lincoln had been assassinated. The 
horror, the dazed surprise, the shock of the announcement, 
I shall never forget. During the four years just passed 
Lincoln had become heroic to my young imagination, loom- 
ing up as a dim and distant figure which seemed to me to 
personify the country. The crime which ended his life 
raised him in my eyes to the proportions of a demigod. 
More than forty years have gone by since then, and I think 
that I have become familiar both with the man and with 
the times in which he lived. The mythical figure of boy- 
hood has given place to that of the statesman and the chief 
of history. With some habit of weighing and judging men 
historically, I have come to the conclusion that Lincoln was 



130 EARLY MEMORIES 

the greatest man of his time, and the opinion expressed by 
Sir Spencer Walpole in his "History of Twenty-five Years" 
assures me that this is not merely the unmeasured feeling 
of patriotism. No one in the North certainly would think 
to-day of belittling Lincoln. All confess that greatness 
which has grown steadily since his death. Yet there are 
writers who go so far as to put inferior men in contrast and 
comparison with him as if they stood on the same level. 
In that time of stress, in that great ordeal of the Civil War, 
no one stands on the same plane with Lincoln No one else 
moves in his orbit. He stands out a lonely figure on the 
heights to which only the very few and the very greatest 
in human history ever attain. 

I never remember hearing, as a boy, bitter words about 
the soldiers of the Confederacy except when some of them 
were guilty of barbarities, like Forrest or the keepers of 
the Southern prisons, but I well recall the extreme bitter- 
ness which was expressed in regard to Northern men with 
Southern sympathies. The bitterness here, as elsewhere, has 
long since gone, but I see no reason to change the opinion 
upon which it was founded. This is an old-fashioned view, 
no doubt, but I believe it to be eminently sound. I can 
understand the man who during the Civil War was loyal 
both to his State and to the nation. I can understand and 
I profoundly admire the man who was loyal to the nation 
against his State. I can understand the man who was 
loyal to his State against the nation. But I cannot under- 
stand the men who were loyal neither to their State nor to 
their nation. Such men in the loyal but divided border 
States who joined the Confederate army were overcome by 
the influence of neighborhood, and at least command the re- 
spect which must always be given to a man who risks his life 
for his belief, no matter how erroneous that belief may be. 
But those men who did not leave their own loyal States to 



THE WAR: 1860-1865 131 

enter the Southern army, those men who stayed at home, 
sheltered and protected by the arms and the laws of their 
State and their nation alike, and who yet were Secessionists 
and Southern sympathizers, were loyal to nothing and risked 
nothing. Whether they darkly conspired, as in Indiana, or 
fostered riots, as in New York, or contented themselves, as 
was most common, with assailing the government, seeking 
to cripple it and proclaiming their sympathy with its en- 
emies, they were utterly disloyal, and deserve to be spoken 
of in history in proper terms as among the worst foes of the 
country. When the history of the time is written by men 
who not only seek the truth, but have not the fear of being 
thought ungenerous or a dread of criticism in certain nar- 
row circles before their eyes, they will get their deserts. 

Another of the intense feelings of the war time was the 
hostility which I imbibed against England. I can recall 
well the impotent rage I used to feel when I read sentences 
from English newspapers or magazines like Blackwood's. I 
knew nothing of the details then. I know them all now, 
and my anger has long since been swallowed up in sheer 
marvel at the stupidity of the English Government and of 
the English governing classes, as well as at the utter lack of 
ability and capacity displayed by so many of those leaders 
whom the English always talk and write about as if they 
were very great men. That England's treatment of the 
United States was inexcusable and that she was forced to 
make an apology for her conduct is the least part of it. It 
is the exquisite stupidity of it all which is so amazing. And 
in proportion as I felt a boyish wrath against England, so 
was I grateful to the workmen of Lancashire, to Bright and 
Cobden, and to the few who stood by us, and, when I knew 
more, to the Queen and Prince Albert, for their attitude, 
which helped us so much at a very dark hour. As a public 
man I have been called upon to deal much with our foreign 



132 EARLY MEMORIES 

relations, and I know not only that a war between this 
country and Great Britain would be a crime against civili- 
zation and something not to be thought of, but I also know 
that the closest and most friendly relations between the 
two powers are for the interest of peace and freedom, as 
well as of both countries and of the world. I have done 
what little I could to promote such relations, and to carry 
out this policy honestly and thoroughly, but I have never 
thought it necessary to make needless concessions in order 
to obtain this result, or to show any more courtesy to them 
than they have been ready to extend to us. Still less have 
I ever felt the slightest deference to English opinion except 
for that of certain people, few in number, as in the war 
time, who are genuine friends to the United States. I lived 
through that war time, and I have never suffered the feel- 
ings then engendered to affect my action toward England or 
Englishmen in the slightest degree. I have always striven 
to treat both on their existing merits. Still, I cannot and 
do not forget, for I was taught a lesson in those early days 
by the attitude of England, and also by that of France, 
laboring then under the burden of the empire, which I 
could not unlearn if I would. 

Mr. Herbert Paul says in one of his essays that the two 
greatest economic and political events of the nineteenth 
century were the consolidation of the United States and 
the unification of Germany. I entirely agree with him. I 
think also that the dissolution of the American Union and 
the rise of two or more warring, military republics on this 
continent would have been a hideous misfortune to the 
American people and, in a measure, to mankind. The South 
was behind the North in economic strength, in learning, and 
in capacity for development, all owing to the curse of slavery, 
and the victory of the South would have been a blow to 
civilization and progress. I say this, recognizing to the full 



THE WAR: 1S60-1865 133 

the high courage, great ability, and unselfish devotion of 
the Southern people. But they were trying to turn back 
the hands of the clock, to establish an anachronism, to re- 
tard human progress, and it would have been an awful mis- 
fortune if they had succeeded. The war was fought to 
save the Union, but it was slavery which had put the Union 
in peril. Slavery was a crime against humanity, and it was 
also a huge economic blunder and a social curse. It is well 
that it was abolished by the hand of war. 

These are the faiths of my boyhood born in the war 
time. I could only feel them then ; I can express them now. 
They were truisms then. They seem to be pushed aside by 
some people now as if they were something to be ashamed of, 
as if they might be true but were certainly disagreeable and 
might possibly hurt somebody's feelings. I have wearied of 
the tone, so familiar of late, that now, fifty years after it all, 
everybody was right and nobody wrong, that there was no 
right and no wrong about it, and that the thing to do is to 
pass it over gently and politely with abundant sentiment 
and meaningless praise for eveiybody. No good is ever 
done by falsifying the past. There was a right and a wrong 
in the Civil War. I would not revive a single bitter memory, 
I would not do otherwise than acknowledge all the great 
qualities shown by the South, I would not attack them for 
what they then did. But it is a deep injury to shirk the 
truth or tiy to hide it by silence or seek to blot it out. The 
propositions I have stated about the Union and slavery are 
admitted openly or secretly by all men. If they are true 
then the North was right and the right won. If we start 
with that no more need be said, but I do not want this 
great truth of history to be lost in a sentimental mist or con- 
fused by a false belief that if we daub the truth with rhetoric 
so that it can no longer be recognized we shall in that way 
promote good feeling. The union of the States and good 



134 EARLY MEMORIES 

feeling as well can rest securely and permanently on truth 
alone. They will never prosper on debilitating falsehoods. 
Let the central truth stand confessed and admitted, and then 
let all the rest be buried in silence. As Lincoln said, accord- 
ing to tradition: "I can conceive that both sides may be 
wrong. I can conceive that one side should be right and 
the other wrong. But it is impossible that both sides 
should be right." l The tendency in the North just now in 
certain quarters is to try to pretend that both sides were 
right. That is not only impossible but false. Events have 
shown inexorably that it was the right which triumphed at 
Appomattox. Forgiveness is admirable and cannot be too 
complete, but in the affairs and the history of nations it is 
not wise wholly to forget. It is still more unwise, it is worse 
than unwise, to seek to obscure the truth. 

" 'Tis man's perdition to be safe 

When for the truth he ought to die." 

1 In a meditation written in a dark hour— September, 1862— and never 
published until long after his death, Lincoln said: 

"In great contests each party claims to act in accordance with the will of 
God. Both may be and one must be wrong." "Life of Lincoln," Hay and 
Nicolay, vol. VI, p. 342. 

This is the same thought as that expressed in the words quoted in the text. 



CHAPTER VII 

EUROPE: 1866-1867 

After I had been five years at Mr. Dix well's school it 

was decided by the family authorities that we should all 

go to Europe, all including my mother, my sister and her 

husband, Mr. George Abbot James, to whom she had been 

married three years before, and myself. As I was to enter 

Harvard the following year, it was necessary that my studies 

should not be interrupted, and my mother, therefore, secured 

as my tutor to go with us Constant Davis, who was the 

eldest son of Rear-Admiral Davis, and whose mother was 

her second cousin as well as a lifelong and most intimate 

friend. Of Admiral Davis I shall have much to say later 

and will say no more here. But of my tutor Constant Davis 

I must speak now, for he was, although unhappily only for 

a short time, one of the best, one of the most fortunate and 

most salutary influences which ever came into my life. He 

had graduated from Harvard in the class of 1864, taking 

high rank. He had been very popular in his class and had 

indeed inspired an affection and admiration among some of 

its members, whom he knew best, quite unusual for so young 

a man. He was a gentleman in the highest and best sense 

of the word, as intrepid morally as he was physically, a 

scholar, a lover of literature, with an exhaustless fund of 

humor, and a charming companion. It was his intention to 

become a lawyer, and he had begun to study for the bar 

when his health became impaired and the first signs of con- 

135 



136 EARLY MEMORIES 

sumption, to which he was soon to fall a victim, had already 
appeared. It was largely the hope that a change of climate 
might be of benefit which had led my mother to ask him, 
and which had induced him to consent, to go with us as my 
tutor. For the first time, under his guidance, I began to 
get a little real education and to regard lessons as something 
other than an infliction devised for the torment of boys. 
Wherever we stayed for any length of time my studies were 
regularly carried on. No one, however gifted, could make 
me accept mathematics as other than a sore affliction, al- 
though I learned what was necessary readily enough and 
forgot it all with equal promptitude. But with Constant 
Davis I discovered for the first time that Virgil and Homer 
were not created solely for the misery of schoolboys, but 
were great poets telling noble stories, the one with unequalled 
distinction of manner, the other with a splendor of narra- 
tion never surpassed, and with the freshness and simplicity 
of a world still young. Then, too, I also discovered that the 
orations of Cicero were models of eloquence, ranging over 
the whole gamut of emotion and argument, and I became 
deeply interested in them and in the Rome which they por- 
trayed. It was the same with the extracts from the Greek 
poets in "Felton's Reader," and with classical history, of 
which I was expected to know a certain amount. But my 
tutor's influence did not stop there. I know that he was 
fond of me, but he did not hesitate to point out plainly, al- 
though kindly, my faults of character. I remember resent- 
ing frequently what he said, and yet was much affected by it 
even if I did not admit it at the moment, and the truth of his 
strictures I have fully recognized ever since. He did more, 
however, than teach me my lessons or try to improve my 
ways and manners. A great lover of literature himself, he 
led me on to read Shakespeare, of whom I was already fond, 
and when I had made a beginning not only stimulated my 



EUROPE: 1866-1867 137 

love for the plays but caused me to understand them and to 
perceive beauties and appreciate humor which I had before 
passed over undetected. It was his first journey to Europe; 
he had a most alert, inquiring mind, sensitive to all forms 
of beauty and to every kind of historic association. It was 
his intense interest in everything we saw which led me, 
although I was at an age which is usually bored by sights, 
to find interest and pleasure in buildings and pictures and 
historic places which were to me an occupation and amuse- 
ment then, and which became the source of much of the 
best enjo} r ment of my life in later years, when I was able to 
look at what I saw with more considerate eyes. Immediately 
after our return from Europe Constant Davis, whose health 
had not improved, went as secretary with his father, who 
had been ordered to the command of the South Atlantic 
Squadron, to join the fleet then at Rio de Janeiro. There, 
before the year was out, he died. He was one of the best 
friends, in the best sense, I ever had, as well as one of the 
finest characters, and, if it was possible for a boy to judge, 
he was also one of the clearest intellects I have ever known. 
I have dwelt upon my close association with Constant 
Davis because as an influence upon my life it was the most 
important contribution of that year of travel. But those 
months in Europe were also full of interest to me hi other 
ways. Even in 1866 going to Europe was not the every- 
day matter it has since become, and improved means of 
communication have done much, while the rapid growth of 
the United States in wealth and luxury has done still more, 
to obliterate the superficial differences in modes of life, in 
manners, and in the appliances of daily existence, and espe- 
cially of travel, which then existed in a very marked degree 
between the New and the Old World. That which is called 
progress in modern civilization seems to be confined to 
scientific knowledge, to increased altruism and a larger tol- 



138 EARLY MEMORIES 

erance, degenerating sometimes into mere feebleness and 
indifference, and finally to mechanical improvements, where 
it is most salient. It is not apparent that in art or litera- 
ture or intellect the race has advanced at all beyond, or even 
equalled, the achievements of the Greeks. But when we 
come to scientific knowledge, and to the development and 
concentration of power and energy, particularly in the ap- 
plication of steam and electricity, the two mighty forces 
which are really new to the world, the visible change and 
progress, even in a comparatively short time, are very 
marked. 

When we left Boston in June, 1866, we sailed in the 
Africa, not one of the best steamships, but considered a 
very good boat. She was a paddle-wheel steamer, with 
auxiliary sail-power, of about two thousand tons; the last 
steamship in which I crossed the ocean was of twenty-five 
thousand tons, and there are several larger than this. 
The Africa depended veiy much upon her sails, stopped at 
Halifax, and consumed in good weather a round fortnight 
in getting to Liverpool. She had a poop-deck over the 
dining-saloon, whence one descended to what would be 
called the spar-deck, and there was little or no place for 
walking or moving about. The staterooms were aft under 
the spar-deck, small, dark, with one miserable oil light, 
which was extinguished at ten o'clock, for each pair of 
cabins, with port-holes always awash, and therefore closed, 
while the entire place was completely mi ventilated and 
reeked with the smell of bilge-water. There was nothing 
resembling a bathroom, and no means of taking a bath 
except by going on deck very early and persuading a sea- 
man to dash salt water over one with a bucket. Even on 
the poorest ships to-day passengers, I think, would complain 
of such conditions, but then they were universal and ac- 
cepted as inseparable from an Atlantic voyage. The treat- 



EUROPE: 1866-1867 139 

ment of passengers was characteristic of the Cunard Com- 
pany at that day, although it was no doubt worse on some 
ships than on others. The food was limited in quantity 
and poor in quality. The ship was dirty, the service was 
bad, and the manners of the ship's company rough and un- 
civil. If any one complained, and this was true for many 
years subsequently, the invariable reply was: "The Cunard 
Company has never lost a passenger." This was no doubt 
highly creditable, but as a reply it was hardly relevant. 
There seemed no logical reason why, because one escaped 
drowning, one should be subjected to every sort of discom- 
fort and neglect. The Cunard Company has lost a good 
many ships since 1866, and in late years, on one occasion, 
some passengers unfortunately, who were swept overboard. 
Their former stereotyped reply, therefore, can no longer be 
made, and I am informed that they now treat their passen- 
gers very well, and not as if it was a favor to get them across 
the North Atlantic like cattle, alive and with unbroken 
limbs. 

The theory was at that time entertained by members 
of my family, among others, that a paddle-wheel was stead- 
ier than the screw steamers, then just coming into fashion. 
The side- wheelers may roll less — after my first journey out 
and home I never crossed the ocean in another — but they 
certainly pitch more, and not even a channel steamer in the 
heaviest sea could have performed worse gyrations than that 
wretched Africa. I had been knocking about in small boats 
all my life, but I succumbed promptly and utterly to the 
Africa, and did not rally or get up on deck for several days. 
I was acutely miserable, and longed for home. It was then 
that I first learned all the profound wisdom and humor of 
Touchstone's saying which Constant Davis repeated to me 
many times: "So this is the forest of Arden. When I was 
at home I was in a better place. But travellers must be 



140 EARLY MEMORIES 

content." Gradually, however, I escaped from this utter 
misery, and toward the end of the voyage began to enjoy 
myself. There were many pleasant people on board, friends 
of ours in Boston, who all knew each other very well, and 
who made life as pleasant as it could be under existing 
conditions. Among the passengers was Lawrence Barrett, 
who struck up a friendship with Constant Davis, and upon 
whom I gazed with the eager curiosity which a distinguished 
actor always excited in my mind at that period. It seemed 
strange to me to see him going about just like any one else, 
for I felt that he ought to wear a toga and a green mantle, 
and deliver the great oration over the body of Caesar as I 
had seen him do it years before. The daily existence on 
shipboard seemed to me dull and slow, as I have always 
thought it since after the sensation of rest and change, so 
agreeable in the first days of a voyage, has worn off, but it 
was all so new to me then that I found it more exciting 
than I have in later years, and there were many little events 
which impressed themselves upon me at that time. That 
which I best remember, however, was the last night of the 
voyage, when we were off the coast of Ireland. I had never 
been so far north, and the long twilight, which lasted almost 
until the dawn began to show in the east, made upon me an 
ineffaceable impression. 

Feeling deeply the importance of my journey, I resolved 
to keep a journal. I have made many such resolutions in 
the course of my life but have never succeeded in keeping 
either journal or resolution for any length of time, and my 
first effort was no exception to those which came after it in 
later years. I began with great zeal, fulness, and elabora- 
tion. Gradually the entries dwindled, then became ir- 
regular, and at the end of six months ceased altogether. I 
find, on looking over the old pages which have been hidden 
away for forty years, that I wrote down methodically what 



EUROPE: 1S66-1867 141 

I did, and described what I saw with painstaking accuracy. 
My diary exhibits a most precocious interest in sightseeing, 
but it is all so dry, so devoid of imagination or humor, that 
it is of interest to no human being, not even to myself. 
Yet I will nevertheless quote the opening lines of the earli- 
est entry, for they give a clear first impression, and one 
which, curiously enough, I have never seen reason to alter. 

"July 1st, Sunday, Liverpool. 
"When I awoke this morning I found the ship was quiet and 
that we had really arrived at Liverpool. My first impression on 
coming on deck at half past six was of a very uninteresting and 
dirty looking city with immense docks. The River Mersey looks 
very much like the East River at New York. At seven we had a 
most unsatisfactory breakfast and at ten the custom house officers 
came on board and overhauled our trunks. A small tender came 
along side and we were carried to the city. The first things that 
I noticed were the carriages especially the ' hansom cabs ' with a 
man behind driving over the top; the four wheelers in one of which 
we came up are the meanest little conveyances I ever saw." 

The days of landing in a tender are over and would 
greatly surprise the modern passengers who walk from their 
steamship into a London train, but the character of the 
vanishing four-wheelers has not changed, and it is interest- 
ing to note that at that time a hansom cab had not been 
seen in the United States, and was regarded by me as a 
strange vehicle, familiar only in the pages of Punch and well 
worthy of note in my journal. 

I am not going to describe our travels after we landed, 
for I have never had any ambition to write a guide-book, 
especially one designed to illuminate beaten paths. I shall 
merely try to give some of the impressions which I then re- 
ceived, and which I have kept ever since as pleasant memo- 
ries. To a boy who had never been farther afield from his na- 
tive town than New York it was all very new and strange. 



142 EARLY MEMORIES 

Moreover, Europe, as I have already said, was by no means 
as familiar to Americans forty years ago as it is now. Com- 
paratively few Americans went to Europe then; I mean as 
compared with the thousands who now cross the Atlantic 
every summer. It was before the days of Cook's excursions, 
of round trips and low fares. There were very few steam- 
ship lines; indeed, the Cunard boats were practically the 
only ones which people generally thought of using. Then 
again, as I have also said before, there was a much greater 
difference in modes and habits of life between America and 
Europe at that time than there is now, owing to the vast 
change which has taken place in frequency and closeness of 
communication, and the result was that the commonplaces 
of to-day seemed then, in many instances, strange and in- 
teresting to a wanderer from the United States. 

We stayed a day or two in Liverpool and saw such sights 
as the city possessed, including a wax-work exhibition where 
a figure of Wilkes Booth, conspicuous among the murderers, 
who were all dressed alike in black frock coats, made me 
feel somewhat at home. But it was the gloomy, dingy 
hotel, the dark, smoky streets, the cloudy sky, which dwell 
in my mind still as the sensations that most keenly empha- 
sized my being for the first time in a foreign country. 

From Liverpool we went to Leamington, and there a little 
incident occurred which illustrates the remoteness of America 
from England in 1866. My brother-in-law went into the inn 
yard to order carriages for the next day. The man in charge, 
a stout and cheerful person of the Tony Weller type, asked, 
after the order had been given, what part of England we 
came from. My brother-in-law said that we were Americans, 
to which the rubicund coachman made answer, with genu- 
ine surprise: "Why, you do speak English uncommon well, 
to be sure." I do not believe that any Englishman of any 
class would to-day express surprise at hearing an American 



EUROPE: 1866-1867 143 

speak English, no matter how much our dialect might differ 
from his own particular variety. Yet I must admit that 
many years afterward a little incident befell me which some- 
what impairs this generalization. It occurred when I was a 
member of the House of Representatives. I was walking 
through the Capitol with two young Englishmen who had 
brought me letters, when we happened to pass some negroes 
— no very uncommon sight in that neighborhood. One of 
my companions turned to me and said: " Why, those fellows 
were speaking English." I did not quite take in what he 
meant, and said: "What do you mean?" "Why/' he re- 
plied, "it is quite remarkable that they should have learned 
English so well." "They have been here for two or three 
hundred years," I said, "and they have no other language. 
What did you expect them to speak — some Congo dialect?" 
From Leamington we made excursions to Warwick, 
Stratford, and Kenilworth. Nothing in all my travels since 
has quite equalled the vividness of those first impressions 
which came sharply home to me in the pleasant June days 
passed in Shakespeare's country. Warwick satisfied all 
that my imagination had conceived a feudal castle to be, 
and it seemed to me then as if earth could offer nothing 
equal to the pleasure of owning and living in such a place. 
When I revisited it years afterward I was glad to find that 
its imposing beauty was all that I had felt it to be when I 
was a boy. The great towers and walls, the moat, the bat- 
tlements, were the realization of the scenes of which I had 
dreamed in reading Scott. It was much more satisfying 
than Kenilworth, which was too much of a ruin to content 
me, although the scene of the novel was full of meaning. 
Brought up to a blind devotion to Shakespeare, Stratford 
and its neighborhood were an unending delight, and I ac- 
cepted every tradition and every tale of the guide with 
uncritical satisfaction. I seemed to come near to Shake- 



144 EARLY MEMORIES 

speare and to understand his actual existence as never be- 
fore. I have always been glad that my first impression of 
a foreign country, which is sure to be keener than any later 
one, should have been received from the town where Shake- 
speare was born and died, and where he lies buried. 

From Leamington we went on to London. The great 
city had a strangely familiar look to a youthful student of 
Leech and Dickens, and the crooked streets did not seem 
odd to a native of Boston. I shall not describe what we 
saw, because they were merely the usual sights, nor are my 
somewhat dim memories of the impressions which then 
crowded fast, one upon another, worth recording. It is 
the fashion now, as I observe in books and letters, to speak 
with contempt of sight-seeing as something worthy only of 
the Philistine, which, Leslie Stephen says, is the name a 
prig gives to the rest of mankind. At all events, I must 
make the humiliating confession that, as my youthful diary 
shows, I have always been fond of seeing sights. 

" For to admire and for to see, 
For to be' old this world so wide, 
It never did no good to me, 
But I can't help it if I tried." 

I have never tried to help it and I liked sights at sixteen, 
an age of easy boredom, almost as much as I did later. 
But at least I have never desired to give an account of my 
sight-seeing or to write books of travel, and I shall not begin 
now. On the contrary, I shall leave London at once and 
recall my pleasantest experience during my first visit to 
England, which had nothing at all to do with towers, abbeys, 
or museums. 

Mrs. Russell Sturgis was a very old and intimate friend 
of my mother, and as soon as we reached London she 
came to see us and insisted that we should all come to them 



EUROPE: 1866-1867 145 

at once to stay for a fortnight at their house, Mount Felix 
at Walton-on-Thames. Thither we accordingly went after 
a brief delay, and a very happy fortnight for me ensued. 
It was all veiy new to me, the mode of life, the people, and 
the place, and to all alike I look back with real affection. 
For my own satisfaction I wish to say a few words here 
about some of the kindest and best people I have ever 
known, whose goodness and hospitality I can never forget. 
In what I write here and hereafter I do not intend to con- 
fine myself to an attempt to describe merely persons of 
public eminence or those who have made a noise in the 
world, and with whom the fortune of life has brought me 
into contact. I have known many j^eople who have en- 
gaged my affection and commanded my respect, who were 
as interesting, as excellent in character, and as useful in 
their respective spheres as those who will find a place in the 
histories of the time. Of such people I would fain make 
some "trivial, fond record." Thackeray says on the title- 
page of one of his novels that it is the "History of Philip 
on his way through the world, showing who robbed him, 
who helped him and who passed him by." Of the first and 
last classes I shall have little or nothing to say here. Of 
those who helped this particular "Philip" I hope to say a 
great deal. 

Mr. Russell Sturgis was a member of a well-known Boston 
family. He had been for many years in China in the great 
house of Russell and Company, and then, on the invitation 
of Mr. Bates, had gone to London, and at the time I knew 
him first was one of the principal partners in Baring Brothers. 
He was then past sixty and one of the handsomest men I 
have ever seen. It is rare to find an elderly man who is 
not only distinguished-looking, but so clearly handsome in 
face and figure, as to impress a boy, who naturally turns 
away from age without either understanding or appreciation. 



146 EARLY MEMORIES 

Mr. Sturgis was as genial, cordial, warm-hearted, and full 
of fun and humor as he was good-looking, and, although I 
justly felt that a partner in the Barings was a highly impor- 
tant personage, I never was conscious of any shyness or stiff- 
ness when I was with him. Mrs. Sturgis, like her husband, 
was very handsome and was also a very clever and most 
charming woman, whose untiring kindness to me and mine 
I shall ever remember. 

There were four children. Harry, the eldest, was at 
Oxford, although just then at home for his vacation. I 
looked up to him as a person of immense age and distinction, 
much more remote from me than his father and mother, 
because I was well able to measure the awful distance which 
separated a schoolboy from a "man" in college. Never- 
theless he was kindness itself, and took me out to row on 
the river and to swim with him in its placid waters. The 
second son, Julian, somewhat older than myself, and after- 
ward well known as a refined and graceful writer, was a 
clever, handsome boy, still at Eton, whither I went one day 
to see him, and where I was duly fascinated by the old 
school and by the famous playing-fields immortalized in 
the phrase which, I believe it is now said, was never uttered 
by Wellington. The only daughter of the house, May, was 
just my age; but, although she was most kind to me and I 
liked her very much, my view of girls and girls' society at 
that time of life was not at all what it should have been. 
The youngest of the family, Howard, was very much 
younger than I and consequently I looked down upon him, 
kindly of course, but still as one far below me in the scale 
of being. He too has become an author, and has written 
some remarkable stories, each stronger than the preceding 
one. His last novel, "Belchamber," is one of the most 
powerful novels of the time, very painful but convincing and 
realistic in a high degree. 



EUROPE: 1866-1867 147 

There were no others in the household near my age ; but 
there was always a houseful of people. Miss Mary Adams, 
the daughter of our minister, was there, and, although she 
seemed very remote from a schoolboy's level, her presence 
gave me the refreshing sense that we were not wholly cut off 
from Boston or from people who knew about us and who we 
were. I will not, however, enumerate all the many visitors 
who came and went during that pleasant fortnight. I re- 
call only one who stands out with especial distinctness, and 
that was General Hamley, a friend of Mr. and Mrs. Sturgis. 
He was an officer of distinction, chiefly, I think, on account 
of a book which he had written on "Tactics," or some 
similar military topic in regard to which he was then an 
authority. He had also written a novel, "Lady Leigh's 
Widowhood," which had a good deal of temporary vogue. 
If I had then known of Jerrold's famous question: "Pray, 
sir, are you anybody in particular?" I should have felt sure 
that it must have been addressed to General Hamley. As 
it was, I only gazed at him in unregarded silence and won- 
dered why he hated my country so much. He was really 
a living explanation of the intense American hostility to 
England, for he was full of that unreasoning dislike of 
Americans which was such an amiable trait in some Eng- 
lishmen of that day. I suppose that it was hard enough 
to pardon us for existing, and just at that moment it was 
probably impossible to forgive us for having won in the 
Civil War, which General Hamley at least had no wish to 
do. Not long before our arrival Wendell Holmes, the son 
of Doctor Holmes, and now a justice of the Supreme Court, 
had been in England. He had served through the war with 
distinguished gallantry, had risen to the rank of colonel, 
had been three times badly wounded, and had come to 
England for a well-earned rest and vacation. He was 
young, brilliant in intellect, full of life and energy, and 
fresh from a great experience. He had seen larger armies, 



148 EARLY MEMORIES 

greater and more desperate battles, and had witnessed 
heavier losses in action than General Hamley had ever 
known outside of books. He dined at the Sturgises' one 
evening, and General Hamley took occasion to put the of- 
fender in his proper place by asking: " Colonel Holmes, could 
you train your men to fight in line?" "Train our men to 
fight in line! Why, General Hamley, you can train monkeys 
to fight in line." At this point the conversation seems to 
have broken off, the distinguished general being rather hap- 
pier in giving offence than in meeting a retort. To the suc- 
cessors and imitators of General Hamley I always feel 
tempted to repeat Robert Louis Stevenson's wise words: 
"Let him hold on and he will find one country as good 
as another; and in the meanwhile let him resist the fatal 
British tendency to communicate his dissatisfaction with a 
country to its inhabitants. 'Tis a good idea, but somehow 
it fails to please." 

I do not for a moment mean to suggest that all English- 
men felt as General Hamley did toward Americans. There 
were many English people in the Sturgis house when we 
were there who were kind, friendly, and well-bred. Indeed, 
I objected far more to an old American copperhead who was 
among the guests, and who was infinitely more offensive to 
me than General Hamley or any one else. Fresh from war 
scenes, I would have greatly liked to have thrown this par- 
ticular countryman of mine into the river. The objection 
lay not against Englishmen, but only against those of the 
Hamley type who seem, unfortunately, to have been for a 
century past, and until quite recently, a controlling influ- 
ence in England so far as public opinion and public action 
were concerned. They apparently were able to inspire 
Canning with his unwise malevolence toward the United 
States in 1810, and Gladstone and Lord John Russell with 
their blundering hostility fifty years later. 

After the Revolution England's obvious policy was to re- 



EUROPE: 1866-1867 149 

establish good relations with the United States, and detach 
them from France and Napoleon. It could have been easily 
done, but English ministers preferred to heap upon us every 
form of wrong, insult, and contempt which could be devised, 
and they secured as a reward the War of 1812. In that 
war they lost forever all their pretensions to interfere with 
American commerce and American seamen. They also lost 
eleven frigate actions out of thirteen, and were beaten in 
two fleet actions on the Lakes, which did not add to their 
naval prestige. I have never been able to see in what way 
Canning's policy paid. It seems to me to have been unin- 
telligent to the last degree, and the wounds left by the War 
of 1812 were kept open and smarting by the judicious efforts 
of English writers and travellers. Then came the Civil 
War, and again England had an opportunity to bind the 
United States to her by bonds of gratitude which could not 
have been broken. The policy she adopted was such that 
the North was left with a sense of bitter wrong and outrage, 
and the South with a conviction that they had been uselessly 
deceived and betrayed. The treaty of Washington and 
years of bitter feeling, only dispersed at last by England's 
wise attitude nearly forty years later, at the time of the 
Spanish war, were the result of her policy during the war 
between the States. Again I ask, Did the attitude taken by 
England from 1861 to 1865 profit her? If the purpose was 
to gratify jealousy, malice, and contempt it seems to me 
that a heavy price was paid and nothing gained. But I do 
not believe that there was anything so intelligent as the 
gratification of malice or jealousy to be found in England's 
policy at that time. I think it was mere stupidity, and of 
such magnitude as to be tragic if we consider the conditions. 
Stupidity, allied with the invincible desire to cant and 
preach, is at the bottom of the British contempt for the out- 
sider, whether in riding or fighting or the management of 



150 EARLY MEMORIES 

governments. The doctrine seems to be that because we 
English think that we do well, and think so no doubt very 
justly, we must therefore refuse to admit that any one else 
can do well too. It seems to me that the England of this 
day — the England of Balfour and Lansdowne, of Rosebery 
and Bryce and Harcourt and Grey — has made a great and 
wise advance in the interest of their own country by their 
changed attitude toward the United States, and by 
abandoning the old habit of contemptuous incivility. No 
doubt the complete indifference of the United States to 
English opinion which has replaced our former sensitive- 
ness has had much to do with this alteration, but I wish 
to give all due credit to wiser counsels and larger knowledge 
among the English leaders of all kinds to-day. Some of 
the old sort who still lag superfluous upon the stage, and 
who are as impervious to facts as they are destitute of 
manners, appear occasionally, like Swettenham recently in 
Jamaica. But they are looked upon as odd survivals, who 
are regarded with amusement in America, and are con- 
demned in England by all whose opinions are important 
to the good relations between the two countries which are 
so much to be sought and cherished by all sensible men. 
The American copperhead and the English foe weighed 
but little, however, forty years ago upon the mind or spirits 
of sixteen. I was altogether too contented with my sur- 
roundings, too fully occupied, and was enjoying myself too 
much to worry about either. Mount Felix was a delightful 
place. It was not large, but a fine lawn stretched away at 
the back, running along the river and edged with noble trees. 
The quiet beauty, the repose, the air of completion, although 
I could not analyze my sensations then, were all eminently 
satisfying. The feeling that the land had been so long 
subdued, that so many generations had succeeded each 
other in those pleasant fields, that there had been time to 



EUROPE: 1866-1867 151 

finish and refine, has a peculiar attraction to an American. 
This is the compelling charm of the English landscape. I 
have felt it always, and many times since those early days, 
for it never departs, although in after-years I have often 
wondered where those bold and striking scenes were to be 
found which are so frequently described in English novels. 
To American eyes it all seems mild and gentle. The moun- 
tains are what we call hills, and I remember my disappoint- 
ment when I saw the cliffs at Dover and thought what a 
vision I had cherished "of him who gathers samphire; dread- 
ful trade !" Of course there are parts of the coast where the 
headlands are as bold as they are beautiful, and the sea 
naturally has the same splendor as on the other side of the 
Atlantic. But much as I grew to love the English landscape, 
there always came a time when the feeling that it is too con- 
scious, that it suggests a quality which in "Tartarin " Daudet 
has called " decor," comes over me. Then I begin to long for 
the large unconscious scenery of my native land, because I 
have not been sufficiently educated to feel, like Mr. Norton, 
that the outline of American mountains is "vulgar," or to do 
otherwise than rejoice in our vast spaces, in the brilliant sun- 
light, the radiant blue of the heavens, and the transparent 
atmosphere of America. Mist, veiled lights, wet soft clouds, 
and darkness visible always make me homesick after a time, 
however much I feel their artistic value and the delicate 
effects of light and shade which soften and blur all outlines 
and leave nothing sharply defined. 

From Mount Felix we returned to London, and there I 
met my father's English cousins, two brothers, Mr. John 
Lodge Ellerton and Mr. Adam Lodge. Mr. Ellerton in after- 
years came to my mind when I made the acquaintance of 
Major Pendennis. His good manners, his agreeableness, 
his somewhat made-up appearance, his knowledge of people 
and of the world, were all suggestive of Arthur's old uncle 



152 EARLY MEMORIES 

and of the friend of Lord Steyne, but Mr. Ellerton really 
belonged to the period of Pelham ; and his dress and out- 
ward man were still in a modified conformity with the stand- 
ard of that hero and his creator. He had been a young 
man about town in the days of William IV, and being both 
good-looking and intelligent, had had his little success in 
the London world. He was devoted to music and was a 
voluminous composer, as the dictionaries show. But al- 
though possessed of great technical knowledge, facility, and 
capacity, he had, unfortunately, nothing to say, and his ora- 
torios and songs are as dead now as the days in which they 
were written. He had married the widow of a Mr. Manners- 
Sutton, who was, I believe, Lady Theresa Saville, a daughter 
of Lord Scarborough. She had died some years before our 
arrival, and Mr. Ellerton lived alone in their house in Con- 
naught Place, whither we duly went to dine. 

No greater contrast could have been imagined than that 
winch was presented by Mr. Ellerton's brother, Mr. Adam 
Lodge, when they both came to dine with us at our hotel. 
He was an old bachelor, a barrister living in chambers 
in the Temple, and passing his life there and at his club, 
the "Oxford and Cambridge." He was a man of bookish 
habits and solitary life. He came into our room that 
evening blinking as if he had just escaped into the light 
from some dark prison, and he was shy to such a painful 
degree that it made every one else uneasy. He greeted us 
all, including Mr. Ellerton, solemnly and stiffly, and hardly 
said a word during the rest of the evening. After he had 
gone Mr. Ellerton said to my mother: "My brother has 
not spoken to me for twenty years, owing to some miser- 
able difference about a suit in chancery. You see, you have 
done one good deed in asking us both to dinner." They re- 
mained friends from that time forward. Mr. Ellerton died 
soon after we returned to America, but Mr. Lodge I saw 



EUROPE: 1866-1867 153 

again when I was in England in 1S71 and 1872 ; and I kept 
up a fitful correspondence with him until his death. They 
were two interesting men, who seemed strange to me and 
unlike any one I had ever seen. Both were university men ; 
both men of cultivated tastes, but there the resemblance 
between them ceased. One had lived out his life a solitary 
old bachelor in musty chambers in the Temple, the other 
had been a man of the world and successful according to 
the success he desired. They came into my life only for a 
moment, but they interested me and seemed to me then 
and afterwards to explain and make clear characters and 
phases of life in English novels with which I was familiar, 
but which I had failed to understand intimately and in- 
stinctively. 

While I was in London I went much to the theatre, and 
remember particularly seeing Sothern in Lord Dundreary. 
I also went to the opera, and the one which I now recall with 
clearness was "Lucrezia Borgia," with Titiens as Lucrezia 
and Mario as Gennaro. Mario was a fine-looking man and 
an imposing figure on the stage. He had Ins " bel momento " 
and sang one song beautifully, but that was all. His voice 
was gone, and I do not recollect any account of him as ap- 
pearing again in opera. I am very glad, however, that I 
heard him once, as he was one of the surviving heroes of an 
earlier generation of opera-goers. I was fortunate, too, in 
hearing another and much greater celebrity of the days 
before my own. In my diary I find tins entry on July 11: 
"In the evening we went to a concert to hear Jenny Lind. 
She has the most beautiful voice I ever heard. The rest of 
the concert was tolerable." She was a plain woman, very 
simply dressed, and looked elderly to my youthful eyes. 
She sang, among other things, one or two old English songs, 
which I particularly remember, and her voice seemed to me 
the most wonderful T had • ' .'tied to. It had a quality 



154 EARLY MEMORIES 

of beauty which dwells with me still and which I have never 
heard surpassed. 

From London we went to the Continent. My mother 
desired very naturally to follow, so far as might be the line of 
her travels in 1837, when people still made a "grand tour." 
So we went first to Brussels, thence up the Rhine, then 
through Switzerland, where I trudged up and down a good 
many mountains, which involved simply long walks, and 
so on to Geneva, and from there to Paris. 

The second empire was then in all its glory so far as 
outward show was concerned, and few people suspected 
that it was rotten to the core. Fewer still realized what a 
deadly blow had been dealt to it by the failure of the Mex- 
ican expedition. Nothing, indeed, could have been worse 
than the conduct of France to the United States during the 
Civil War. It had been far more hostile than that of Eng- 
land, but nobody cared, because we had expected nothing 
from France, while we had counted upon support and sym- 
pathy from England, believing that England at least would 
understand the situation. But the men charged with the 
government at Washington knew well what a deadly blow 
France had aimed at us in Mexico when our hands were 
tied, and so when our hands were loose our administration 
forced the French troops out of Mexico and stood by un- 
moved while the unhappy victim of the Emperor's cheap, 
showy, dishonest policy, a beggarly imitation of his uncle's 
vast schemes, crossed with a speculation in bonds, went 
bravely to his death. If any people on earth had good 
reason to despise and to understand the second empire and 
all that it meant, it was the people of the United States. 
But I do not think that we were any wiser than our neigh- 
bors, and certainly all that a boy of sixteen saw or cared 
to see was the fair outside of the imperial government, 
which was dazzling enough to blind even better eyes than 



EUROPE: 1866-1867 155 

those of the Parisians for whom it was all particularly de- 
signed. 

In any event my memories of that autumn in Paris are 
all of the most cheerful and agreeable kind, suffused with 
the warm light of pleasure, novelty, and enjoyment. I 
saw all the sights I ought to have seen, and by my own 
efforts and with the help of our friendly courier a good many 
that the better opinion of my family, if consulted, would 
have decided that I should do well to avoid. At the risk 
of appearing hardened I may say that I have never regretted 
the sights of either kind and that neither did me any seri- 
ous harm, although those which were suitable bored me a 
little, because I liked their rivals of dubious character much 
better. 

But the whole pageant of life in Paris just then was very 
brilliant and very imposing too. Not only were there 
plenty of troops in uniform to be seen about the streets, but 
there was great activity in business and an abundance of 
amusements also. The Champs-Ely sees in the afternoon, 
especially on a race-day, were veiy gay, and the horses and 
carriages which filled the broad avenue in a continuous 
stream were good and on the whole well turned out. They 
were not turned out with the same perfection as in Hyde 
Park, but they were showy and effective. I take from my 
diary the account of the day when I not only saw the crowds 
in the Champs-Elysees to the best advantage, but also a 
fine review. 

Paris, Monday, Nov. 5th, 1866. 
At half past one we went to see a grand review by the Emperor 
in person which took place on the race course of the Bois de Bou- 
logne. There were about twenty thousand troops there including 
infantry, cavalry and artillery. The infantry were not as good 
as I expected. They did not wheel well, any of them, not even 
the celebrated Turcos. But the cavalry were very fine and very 



156 EARLY MEMORIES 

showy in uniform; the finest body of men, as I thought, on the 
field were the Cent Garde, a picked squadron of cavalry belonging 
to the Emperor. They were all men over six feet, dressed in a 
uniform of blue and red, with a shining steel breastplate and hel- 
met of the same material with long white horse tails hanging be- 
hind. They were all good looking men and mounted on splendid 
black horses. The Emperor first rode over the field in front of 
the regiments drawn up in line and then stopping in front of the 
grand stand had all the troops pass in review before him. This 
was much the best part of the whole review and gave you the best 
view of all the troops. The concluding thing of the whole was 
splendid. All the cavalry drew up on one side of the field in a 
long line and then charged across the field and pulled up suddenly 
in front of the Emperor. We had no good view of the Emperor 
as we had to look at him through opera glasses, but as I had had a 
very good view of him a few days before when he was driving in 
the street, both of him and the Empress, I did not mind much. 
The Emperor was accompanied throughout the review by the 
Empress and the Prince Imperial, both on horseback. I enjoyed 
the whole review more than anything I had seen in Paris. We 
also saw the celebrated General Canrobert a very fine looking old 
man covered with the greatest profusion of medals and decora- 
tions of all sorts. 

I remember very well the afternoon when I saw the 
Emperor and Empress returning from a review at Long- 
champs. She was then very pretty and graceful and looked 
like her pictures, which I had stared at in the shop windows. 
She smiled and bowed, and I thought that she seemed very 
pleasant and friendly. The Emperor, too, looked just as I 
had expected. He raised his hat at short intervals, but his 
face was expressionless and unsympathetic. I gazed at 
him with intense interest, for I supposed him to be a very 
great man, very mysterious, one whose word would affect 
the destinies of Europe, and I imagined that he was always 
revolving dark and intricate schemes, concealed by what 
even I could see was an ordinary, uninspiring face, as rigid, 



EUROPE: 1S66-1867 157 

in public at least, as a mask. In this feeling I merely re- 
flected the popular idea, which a boy absorbs without effort 
from the current talk and from the atmosphere about him. 
Nevertheless when I saw the Emperor, as I did several times, 
although this particular occasion left the most vivid impress 
upon my memory, I was conscious of a strong sensation of 
disappointment. The actual man fell far short of what I had 
imagined. Yet the opinion I had formed was wrong, and 
the instinctive feeling of disappointment was right. The 
Emperor had the talents of a conspirator in a high degree. 
He also had the gift, which is serviceable to so many lesser 
men, of holding his tongue and looking wise, the surest way 
in which a commonplace man can gain a great reputation, 
not only for sagacity but for ability and force, because 
nothing is more imposing than the unknown. As a matter 
of fact the third Napoleon was a man of ordinary capacity, 
weak, hesitating, easily influenced, and, if not corrupt him- 
self, at least indifferent to corruption in others. When the 
mask was torn off, in 1870, all the world saw the man as he 
really was, but very few understood him in 1S66, and even 
his enemies, who thought him wicked and cruel, believed him 
to be able, when, as a matter of fact, he was neither the one 
nor the other. 

On that same day when I watched the Emperor return- 
ing from Longchamps I saw with him what interested me 
quite as much as the great man himself, and that was the 
Cent-Garde, who accompanied the carriages and to whom I 
alluded in my diary. I thought then, and I think still, that 
in equipment and appearance they were the finest-looking 
troops imaginable. All picked men on superb horses, with 
glittering corselets and helmets, nothing could have been 
more brilliant, more exhilarating than the vision of shining 
silver and glistening steel which they presented as they 
flashed by at a gallop to keep up with the quick-moving car- 



158 EARLY MEMORIES 

riage. There were many soldiers to be seen in and about 
Paris in those days, including the Spahis, who greatly excited 
my curiosity. Very well they looked, too, in my opinion, and 
I was fresh from seeing the veterans of a great war. As a 
matter of fact, the troops were good. There is nothing more 
tragic in modern history than the gallant fighting of the 
French armies when the war with Prussia came. Badly led, 
badly officered in the highest grades, with no plans, with an 
Emperor hesitating and incapable, ruining all by his feeble 
indecision, the French soldiers flung themselves into the 
hopeless struggle with all the courage of their race. If not 
betrayed in the narrow meaning of the word, they were in 
the larger sense, for the government of the second empire, 
with its glittering exterior, beneath which all was unsound 
and rotten, was one vast betrayal of France. 

This shining surface spread over everything in 1866, and 
the dark cracks in the varnish had hardly begun to show. 
Most characteristic of the time were the Offenbach operas, 
which just then were all the rage. They are conspicuous 
in my memories of that first experience in Paris. Where so 
much has grown vague and misty, that music still sounds 
sharply in my ears. I saw Schneider, who "created" the 
roles, in "Orphee," in the "Belle Helene," and in "Barbe- 
Bleue." She was then a person of somewhat opulent charms, 
good-looking, clever, notorious on the stage which she dom- 
inated, vulgar, audacious, effective. I have often thought 
since how she and those operas embodied the time. They 
were together but a passing show, and yet they seem to me 
now to have meant much, for the music filled the air and 
pervaded the streets as the woman who interpreted them 
filled and pervaded the stage. Offenbach's music is perfect 
of its kind. For light, comic operas nothing has ever sur- 
passed it, and the composer was a thorough musician. The 
taking airs frothed up like a glass of champagne and van- 



EUROPE: 1866-1867 159 

ished like the gleaming bubbles of the wine. And yet, per- 
fect as it was of its kind, it left a bad taste behind it. Two 
of the most successful of the operas drew their fun from the 
degradation of two of the most beautiful of the Greek myths. 
The "Grande Duchesse" had, I am sure, a deep effect in 
breeding in the French mind a contempt for the Germans 
and the German army, a grotesque and absurd mistake, for 
which France paid heavily when the day of reckoning came. 
It was all gay and fascinating and delightful to the onlooker 
in 1866, but at bottom it was meretricious and insincere, 
dangerous when taken seriously for a worthy art, as was 
the case at that time. And then I remember seeing Cora 
Pearl, who was pointed out to me in the Bois one day. She 
was one of the figures, one of the sights of Paris — handsome, 
especially on a horse, hard, flagrant, notorious. It seems to 
me now not without significance that what a boy remem- 
bered most vividly as the salient sights of Paris in 1866 
should be the troops, Offenbach's operas, and a fashionable 
courtesan. A boy does not consider or look deeply, but 
takes in what is on the surface, emphatic and obvious to the 
eyes of all men, and these were the sights of Paris then from 
which there was no escape. It is not without meaning and 
seems to me now to suggest the story of the second empire. 
I had a glimpse of another kind of Parisian life which 
also left an enduring impression. Ben. Peirce, the son of 
Professor Peirce, the eminent mathematician, who had 
graduated from Harvard the year before, was completing 
his education at the Ecole Polytechnique and lived in two 
small rooms in the Latin Quarter. An intimate friend as 
well as a first cousin of Constant Davis, the latter naturally 
saw as much of him as he could, and the arrival of Constant 
Davis's younger brother, Charles Henry Davis, then a mid- 
shipman in our navy, on leave from his ship lying at 
Cherbourg, gave an added charm to their meeting in Paris. 



160 EARLY MEMORIES 

Constant Davis took me with him on his first expedition to 
the Rive Gauche; then an arrangement was made for me 
to take French lessons there regularly, and so I used to sit 
happily in the shabby little room in the Rue Cujas and listen 
to the talk, interspersed with much smoking, and ranging 
far and wide, but chiefly concerned with student life in 
Paris, a very fascinating existence, as I gathered, and one 
which it seemed to me must be very exciting. These boys, 
as I should call them now, were all under twenty-five, but 
they appeared to me then to be of vast age and unlimited 
experience, and I felt much pride at being admitted to their 
society. As a matter of fact, they were exceptionally clever 
young men, and the two Davises, despite their youth, had 
marked force of character and much seriousness of purpose. 
Ben. Peirce was a man of really brilliant talent, but was wear- 
ing himself out by a reckless disregard of health and of all 
the necessary limitations of human existence. He under- 
stood almost everything except self-control. He worked 
veiy hard and distinguished himself in his studies; he also 
played very hard, and in short burned the candle not only 
at both ends, but at every other point on its surface. Not 
content with all the amusements affected by the students of 
Paris, he flung himself violently into French politics. He 
was one of the drollest human beings I ever knew, as well as 
one of the most hard-working, and he had a wild humor 
which would cany him into all sorts of excesses, and very 
dangerous when applied to French politics, which at that 
particular time were none of the safest. Haunting the 
cafes frequented by students, and speaking French with the 
utmost fluency, although with a strange accent, he became 
a violent republican and an ardent foe of the empire. 

He was wont to discourse about the infamy of the estab- 
lished government, half seriously and half humorously, but 
with a violence and an eloquence which used to startle my 



EUROPE: 1866-1867 161 

youthful mind. Unfortunately he would not always stop 
there. One night, returning from dinner with his cousins, 
he insisted upon climbing up onto the high fence of the 
Tuileries, and from that point of vantage shouting: "Vive 
la Republique!" "A bas l'Empereur!" "A bas Baclin- 
guet!" The natural result was the appearance of the 
sergents de ville and his immediate arrest. He was rescued 
with difficulty by his cousins, who explained that he was an 
American, and that he was only joking. They also, I fear, 
called the attention of the police officers to the effigy of the 
Emperor as displayed upon certain well-known coins. To 
me Ben. Peirce seemed then, as he does now in memory, 
one of the most fascinating beings I had ever seen. His 
fun and humor were unbounded, but he was equally inter- 
ested in serious matters, and if he did not always think 
soundly, he rarely failed in originality. He graduated at 
the Polytechnique with distinction, came home and en- 
tered at once upon a career which was full of promise. 
But the candle had been burned too freely and in too 
many places. He died young, leaving a sense of loss which 
still endures among all those who knew him. 

From Paris we went south to Nice, and I well remember 
the sensation of well-being which seemed to permeate me 
on again getting into the sunshine. The cold, chilly weather, 
the short days, the dim light and prevailing darkness of 
Paris, so characteristic of northern Europe in early winter, 
had weighed on my spirits, as they always have since, and 
had made me long for the brilliant sun and clear air of my 
native land. So the memory of my first sight of the Riviera 
dwells brightly in my mind, and was much enhanced sub- 
sequently by our four days' drive along the Cornice road to 
Genoa, instead of being flashed in and out of tunnels, as is 
now one's fate in the railroad train. From Genoa we jour- 
neyed in leisurely fashion to Rome, where we passed most of 



162 EARLY MEMORIES 

the winter, and a very delightful winter it was. I saw all 
the sights and enjoyed them; for the first time I seemed 
to understand Cicero and Horace and Virgil, and I grew 
actually to like them because I was in the very place where 
they had lived, and because Constant Davis was able to 
make me appreciate what I studied. This had never hap- 
pened before in regard to lessons, and for this reason I 
really obtained a little education. The presence of the 
Forum made me comprehend in a curious way Milo and 
Clodius and Catiline and the rest, so that I acquired an ad- 
miration for some of the great orations of which they were 
the theme, which I have never lost. My early impressions of 
the ruins and churches, of galleries and pictures and statues, 
are, however, of no interest or value to any one but myself. 
The memories which I would record here relate to veiy dif- 
ferent things, and have no connection with sights or sight- 
seeing, or with lessons in the classics or in ancient history. 
The most interesting person whom I saw and knew in 
Rome, for at my age I was naturally not much in the way 
of seeing distinguished men, whether Italians or others, was 
William Stoiy, the sculptor. He was a very intimate, and 
indeed a lifelong, friend of my mother. In fact, they had 
been boy and girl together, and this meeting after a separa- 
tion of many years was a very great pleasure and happiness 
to both. The Storys had an apartment in the Palazzo Bar- 
berini, where their eldest son has lived until very recently, 
and we went there many times, for both Mr. and Mrs. Story 
were hospitality itself, and did eveiything in their power to 
make our winter a pleasant one. To Mr. Story, boy as I was, 
I became much attached, and I think one could hardly fail 
to have been attracted by him. He was a man of excep- 
tional charm, certainly to those who knew him well. The 
son of Joseph Story, the eminent lawyer, jurist, and justice 
of the Supreme Court of the United States, he had been, as 



EUROPE: 1866-1867 163 

was to have been expected, bred to the bar, and had won 
early distinction as the author of more than one successful 
law-book. But literature and art were the things he really 
loved, and after his father's death he abandoned his profes- 
sion, migrated to Rome, and became a sculptor. He had a 
touch of the poet and wrote much verse, always refined 
and cultivated, and some of it very good, although in his 
more ambitious attempts he exhibited too strongly the 
masterful influence of Browning, with whom he was inti- 
mate. He was also a graceful writer of prose, with abun- 
dance of wit and of a pleasant sentiment characteristic of his 
time. His "Roba di Roma" is one of the best books ever 
written about the Rome of that period. In sculpture, which 
was his life-work, he had a large success, and his statues 
were much admired on the Continent as well as in England 
and America. Like Gibson and Powers and Crawford, like 
Danneker and Marochetti, he belonged to the school of 
Canova. His work and theirs was smooth, rounded, aca- 
demic, conventional in conception, given to the heroic and 
the sentimental. It suited the taste of the day, and was 
much applauded. It is utterly out of fashion now, and is 
regarded by the modern successors of those men with pro- 
found contempt. The defects of the Canova school are 
obvious enough; its lack of force, its artificiality, its essen- 
tial weakness, and its sacrifice of other qualities to grace 
are readily detected, and yet I think it is a mistake, in the 
violence of reaction, to deny to this work all merit. My 
mother bought one of Mr. Story's statues, "The Libyan 
Sibyl," the best one, I think, that he ever made. I have it 
now. It is quite out of fashion ; but after making all allow- 
ance for the influence of habit and association, I still find it 
possessed of dignity and repose, and very pleasant to look 
upon. It has a certain quiet beauty and grace, which are 
sympathetic, as well as a sentiment and a feeling which are 



164 EARLY MEMORIES 

too obvious, perhaps, but which, none the less, fall gently on 
one's mind and are very agreeable to live with. 

Air. Story, as this mere enumeration of his pursuits 
shows, was a man of extraordinary versatility of talent, even 
if he fell short of supreme excellence in any of the great 
paths of effort upon which he entered. But if he never 
touched the heights as poet or artist, he was one of the most 
delightful and most attractive men that it has ever been 
my good fortune to know. Nothing human was alien from 
him. Literature, art, law, society, all interested him, and 
on all he had strong opinions, and would talk with fervor or 
with laughter, lightly, seriously, or eloquently, as the case 
might be. One of his most intense enthusiasms was for 
Italy and the Italians, to whom he thought we foreigners of 
northern race were habitually unjust. I remember well Ins 
telling me a story which used to rouse his indignation even 
more than his amusement, and which is as characteristic of 
the occasional English grace of thought and manner as any I 
ever heard. He said that he was one day coming down the 
steps to the Piazza di Spagna with an English friend. Around 
the fountain at the foot were gathered, as usual, a number of 
peasants in the costume of the country , waiting to be hired 
as models by artists. The Englishman stopped and point- 
ing at them said: "I say, Story, just look at those damn 
foreigners." The fact that these innocent peasants, for 
such they were in those days, were in their own country had 
no effect upon the solid English mind. They did not dress 
as people did in London, they were not English, and there- 
fore, wherever found, they were "damn foreigners." 

In conversation Story was one of the most brilliant men 
I have ever known, and although I think the tears lay very 
near the laughter I have never seen any one with a greater 
fund of humor, or who bubbled over so constantly with fun 
and nonsense, to which he was, happily, much addicted. I 



EUROPE: 1866-1867 165 

was, fortunately, destined to see more of him in the coming 
years, both in Rome and at my own house at Nahant, but 
the earliest impressions of that vivid, sympathetic nature, 
of that quick and versatile mind which so dazzled me during 
my first Roman winter, have never been effaced. 

Perhaps I may be permitted to follow the suggestion of 
the last sentence and diverge at this point in order to give 
some further recollections of William Story in later years. 
Hearing that he was coming to America in the summer of 
1877, I wrote at once asking him to stay with me. I give 
his repl} r because it shows his warm feeling for his old 
friends, and so pleasantly pictures Nahant as it was in the 
days of his youth. 



MY DEAR LODGE — 

I have just received your very kind letter inviting me to stay 
with you at Nahant and I let not an hour pass before thanking 
you. Yes, I shall be delighted to come to you if you can take 
Waldo and me into your charming house. In fact nothing would 
give me greater pleasure and I don't know that I should not have 
insisted on coming if you had not asked me. If, oh, if I could 
only bring back those old romantic days and evenings on the 
verandah (I beg pardon piazza) ! But I shall meet the ghosts of 
the past there and I shall pretend your wife is her own mother 
and flirt frightfully with her if she will let me. How many times 
my thoughts go back to Nahant with a yearning to see it again. 
I shall see your mother too again, who is to me in my memory a 
part of Nahant, and who I hope keeps me still in her heart as I 
do her in mine. 

I heard with deep regret of the death of Admiral Davis. He 
was a very old friend of mine, always cordial and kind and sym- 
pathetic and I always hoped to see him again with all his honors 
about him. I see him still and hear his voice as in the old days in 
Cambridge. 

Motley too is gone and that was a pang to me. He and his 
wife were also a part of Nahant and I well remember when I 
was a boy, seeing them and Stackpole and his wife walking up 



166 EARLY MEMORIES 

and down the old saloon and asking myself if there were ever seen 
two handsomer couples. I shall miss him very much with his 
eager spirit, his warm sympathies, his strenuous friendships. The 
links of the golden chain break off one after another and this is 

the curse of growing old, or one of the curses, for there are many 

With our love to your mother and wife, believe me 

Yours most faithfully 

W. W. Story 
Rome, June 16, 1877 

Two years later I became one of the editors of the Inter- 
national Review, and I wrote Mr. Story asking him to send 
me something for publication. Here are two of his letters 
on this subject. 

Rome, June 5, 1879 

MY DEAR CABOT — 

I am delighted to hear that you have again taken to editing 
and that the Review will be in such good hands. For my own part 
I should be most happy to do anything I can for you and when I 
can get a week, if I can succeed in this, I will try to write you 
something. About what? That is the question. Meanwhile 
there is a long paper which would make I am afraid at least two 
articles, which I wrote in Dieppe last summer on a subject which 
is very interesting in itself and which perhaps might meet your 
wishes. It is an account of the early history of Dieppe and the 
voyages of discovery made by her early navigators in the East 
and the West, in search of the Indies by sea; the first doubling of 
the Cape of Good Hope and the probable first discovery before 
Columbus of Brazil by Jean Cousin and of the subsequent voyages 
numerically following to North America. It opens a very curious 
question as to the priority of discovery in both worlds and as to 
the claims of the Portuguese, etc. The subject interested me 
greatly and would I think be especially interesting to Americans. 
It is a picturesque bit of history and if it proves uninteresting in 
my hands it is my fault, not the fault of the subject. The only 
other thing I have ready is a poem which I gave to Mr. Thorndike 
Rice of the North American Review. It is a supposed letter from 
a Jew who comes to Rome in the reign of Sixtus IV and gives his 



y 



EUROPE: 1866-1867 167 

ideas as to the Church and habits and morals of the clergy and the 
world in Rome. It forms a pendant to that other poem "The 
Roman Lawyer in Jerusalem" in which the case of Judas is treated. 
I do not know whether you intend to introduce poems (it is in 
blank verse) or whether the subject would please you but if Mr. 
Rice has decided not to print it I put it at your disposal. His 
only difficulty was its being in verse but I see in his last number 
that he has printed a poem by Voltaire and perhaps he will insert 
mine. 

If these do not meet your views I can without much trouble 
give you a paper on the knowledge of casting and plaster among 
the ancients, a subject which I have carefully studied and which 
opens a good many questions relating to ancient art. What do 
you say to this? 

I am now busy on my report on the French Exposition and I 
am afraid I am making a book of it. I have got already to my 
140th quarto page of close writing and the Lord knows when and 
where I shall finish it. It is a disagreeable task, for on the one hand 
my sense of duty urges me to sharp criticisms, and my unwilling- 
ness to say unpleasant things on the other hand draws me in an 
opposite direction. Whether I praise or blame however I shall 
satisfy no one of the artists and I am convinced that they will be 
equally offended whichever course I pursue. 

I have just finished a large statue of Sardanapalus of which 
perhaps you may see some accounts in the papers. On the whole 
I think it is considered generally to be at least one of my best 
works. At all events it is original and like nothing else. . . . 

Yours most faithfully 

W W Story 



Vichy, 22 July, 1879 

MY DEAR CABOT — 

I have amused myself in looking over my study of the art of 
casting among the ancients, for it was a study for myself origi- 
nally and written with no view of publication, but merely to clear 
up my own notions; and I now send it to you with some correc- 
tions and alterations. The question is a curious one and I have 
gone into it very elaborately. I think I have not left a leg for 
C. C. P. to stand upon. He wilfully misunderstood the whole 



168 EARLY MEMORIES 

matter. I think I first set him going on it and endeavored to my 
utmost to clear up his mind but he could not be made to see it. 
He wrote to me his authorities and I explained them to him, but 
a wilfu man maun hae his way — and he had his — and years after 
he published his pamphlet which is in my view wholly wrong and 
begs the whole question at every page. The question is archse- 
ologically an interesting one and has never properly been consid- 
ered before. Indeed the fact of the knowledge of casting by the 
ancients has been always taken as a fact and never carefully ex- 
amined. Just as the Elgin marbles were always attributed by 
modern writers to Phidias, until I exploded that belief in an article 
in Blackwood. Since then I believe it has never been repeated. 
... I think of you all at Nahant breathing the cool sea air and 
overlooking scenes that to me are full of romance and embued 
with the warm colors of youth and feeling, while I am here in 
France at Vichy drinking the waters and reading and writing; 
and hoping that my wife at least will get a real benefit from the 
place; but getting little enjoyment from it myself. The people 
are so ugly that they oppress me, and all sorts of maladies walk 
about personified. I wonder if there are any pretty girls anywhere. 
I am sure there are none here. So I read bad and clever French 
novels about creatures so exquisite, both male and female, that 
one is ready to commit any baseness for them and then I ask my- 
self where these creatures are. I see none at Vichy. 

Ever yours most faithfully 

W W Story 

These letters show better than any words of description 
his versatility, the wide range of his interests, and also his 
industry and enormous power of work. 

Some eight years afterward I was at work on my "Life 
of Washington." I had talked much with Mr. Story about 
it because he took a keen interest in the subject, and had 
heard from his father, who was not only for more than twenty 
years the associate but the close friend of Chief Justice 
Marshall, many anecdotes of Washington not then gen- 
erally known. His reply to my letter seems to me to have 
much historical interest. 



EUROPE: 1866-1867 169 

Rome, Palazzo Barberini 
March 15, 1887 

MY DEAR LODGE — 

I am delighted to hear that you are going to give us the por- 
trait of Washington after life, and not a wooden figure after the 
dignity of history as it is called; Marshall's and Sparks's heroes 
are about as much like the real man as the figure in front of the 
tobacco shops is like a North American Indian. If Marshall had 
had a drop of Zola's blood in him and had dared to be true to life 
what a story he might have told that now is lost forever. 

The story that you refer to was told me at Washington in the 
year 1844 I think. I was then recovering from a severe typhoid 
fever and went to Washington with my father. I stayed for about 
six weeks. In the house where we boarded there were several 
members of the Supreme Court and two or three Senators— all 
distinguished men, some of whom had personal reminiscences of 
Washington. There was a common sitting room in which all 
used to meet every evening and talk about every sort of thing and 
eminently interesting those evenings were. I only wish I had re- 
corded at the time on paper the stories that were then told of the 
Revolution and the persons who figured in it, instead of trusting 
it to my sin of a memory. Still many of those stories remain 
vividly in my mind, for they made a deep impression on me, and 
among the most vivid were several relating to Washington and 
his person and bearing and character. Among them was the one 
to which you refer. I do not remember by whom it was told, but 
my impression is that it was related by Richard Peters, then the 
reporter of the Supreme Court, though it may have been by my 
father, for various stories were told on that same evening and my 
memory is not quite distinct on this point. At all events it was 
told as coming directly from Marshall and was to this effect. 

It was at one of the most anxious periods of the War and if 
my memory serves me right immediately after the Battle of the 
Brandy Wine when there was great doubt as to the exact position 
and movement of the British. Washington called a meeting of all 
the officers to discuss the situation and determine the best course 
to pursue. The consultation took place in Washington's tent. 
The night was very stormy and wild. Different views were taken 
by the officers and it became exceedingly important to know the 
exact position of the British across the river. Washington accord- 



170 EARLY MEMORIES 

ingly sent for an officer and directed him at once to cross the river 
and endeavor to discover where the British forces were and 
whether they were in movement and in what direction. The 
officer received his orders and departed and Washington and his 
officers remained together in the tent awaiting his report. Hours 
passed by of impatience and anxiety. At last he returned. Wash- 
ington was sitting at a little table on which were writing materials 
and a large heavy leaden inkstand. " Well," he said, as the officer 
returned, "what is your report?" The officer in answer and with 
some hesitation replied that he regretted to say that he had found 
it impossible to cross the river on account of the severeness of the 
storm, the violence of the wind and rain, and the swollen condi- 
tion of the river; that he had done his best but had found it 
impossible. Washington at this report glared at him an instant 
and then seizing the great leaden inkstand launched it at his head 
exclaiming " God damn your soul to Hell, be off with you and send 
me a man" The officer vanished. He had had enough. In an 
hour or two he returned and gave his report. Washington had 
made it possible for him to cross the river and he was able to state 
the position of the enemy. 

Those, I think, were the exact words Washington used. They 
remain fixed and clear in my memory. They made Washing- 
ton to me a more real and distinct person, and accounted for 
his personal power and absoluteness of character more than all 
the dignified narratives of the buckram historians. I remember 
too that it was agreed by all who were present, when this story 
was told, that Washington could and did swear roundly and 
strongly on occasions, and that when he met Lee in his retreat 
from Monmouth he swore at him with a vengeance and applied 
to him the most opprobrious epithets of unmeasured character 
and vehemence. 

I remember too that it was then said that not only he gave 
way at time to furious bursts of violence, though he was ordinarily 
stiff and stern and undemonstrative, but that he equally on occa- 
sions gave way to uncontrollable fits of laughter and a story told 
by Marshall in illustration of this was then related which hap- 
pened in the presence of Marshall, when Washington was so over- 
come by his laughter that he actually fell to the floor. The story 
is too long to tell here but it is a very ludicrous one. The out- 
lines of the story are simply these. (I had better perhaps shortly 



EUROPE : 1866-1867 171 

relate them as they may interest you). Washington and Marshall 
had gone down into the country to visit a family of friends. They 
were alone and on horseback. The ride was a long one and night 
had come on. As they were approaching the house, Marshall by 
a sudden movement on his horse, perhaps to avoid a tree or other 
obstacle, split his breeches. What was to be done? It was too 
late and the distance was too long for him to return and he was in 
an unpresentable condition. How to make his appearance before 
the ladies of the family was a question. Washington insisted on 
his going on, insisted so strongly that he was forced to comply 
and on they went. The only device to conceal his disastrous con- 
dition that occurred to Marshall was to open his handkerchief 
and hold it by the two ends before him like an apron and this he 
did. On entering the room Washington turned and looked at 
him and then suddenly broke into an uncontrollable fit of laughter 
which was so violent and exhausting that it was said he actually 
rolled on the floor and could not for a time recover himself. 

I have filled up my two sheets and I must break off and go to 
my work. Give my love and my wife's to your wife and mother. 
I send you all a warm embrace and am 

Ever yours faithfully 

W W Story 



At the Story house in 1866-7 we met many interest- 
ing people, at least my elders and betters did, for I merely 
looked on unobtrusively from a corner, and felt much out 
of place at a dinner or evening reception designed for the 
entertainment of "grown-up" persons. I recall Miss Har- 
riet Hosmer, the sculptress, who was constantly at the Pa- 
lazzo Barberini. I think she impressed me chiefly because 
she wore her hair short, but she was a bright, lively woman 
whose statues had just at that time a fleeting popularity. 
I also remember seeing Mr. Frederick Locker, as he was 
then, with his first wife, Lady Charlotte Bruce, and I was 
much puzzled to know why she was never referred to as 
Mrs. Locker. The Duke of Argyll I remember very well, 
chiefly, I suppose, because I had never seen a duke before, 



172 EARLY MEMORIES 

and had a vague idea that persons with that lofty title ought 
to look very differently from the rest of the world. The 
Duke of Argyll certainly did not look like everybody else, and 
he comes back to me as the centre of a group to whom he was 
talking with great animation. He had very light-red hair, 
which seemed to be flaring up from his head, and I remem- 
ber Mr. Story saying very disrespectfully that he looked 
like a lucifer match just ignited. 

Very far removed from the art and literature to which 
William Stoiy gave his life, from the people or from the an- 
tiquities and galleries of Rome, was the occupation which 
constituted my chief pleasure in that winter of 1866-7. 
Always fond of riding, my sister and I promptly provided 
ourselves with horses, so that we might enjoy the Campagna 
in that way. One of our first rides was on a beautiful morn- 
ing to see the meet of the foxhounds which was to take place 
at the Tomb of Cecilia Metella. Every one knows that 
wonderful spot — the great tomb, the Appian Way at its foot, 
the Aqueduct striding across the plain, and in the distance 
the lovely outline of the Alban hills. Young, careless, and 
absorbed in sport as I was, that beautiful scene made a 
profound impression upon me, one that has deepened since 
with every return to Rome, r I could not then put my feel- 
ings into words, but some years afterwards I found them 
expressed when I read "Two in the Campagna.": 

"The Champaign with its endless fleece 
Of feathery grasses everywhere! 
Silence and passion, joy and peace, 
An everlasting wash of air — 
Rome's ghost since her decease." 

But on that particular morning there were no ghosts visible, 
for I had no eyes for anything but the hounds, the horses, 
and the scarlet coats of which I had often dreamed, and 



EUROPE : 1866-1867 173 

which I now regarded with feverish intensity. Suddenly a 
hound gave tongue, then another joined in, and another, 
and then the whole pack. They were off, and without stop- 
ping to think I began to ride after them, following the evi- 
dent impulse of my horse. I happened to be riding near 
General Philip Schuyler, of New York, who was not only 
one of the pleasantest and most kindly of men, as well as 
a distinguished officer of our Civil War, but who was also, 
through his mother, a granddaughter of Alexander Hamil- 
ton, the representative of a family friendship with my own 
people which has lasted for four generations. " Come along," 
he said. "I don't know whether my horse will jump," I 
replied. "I think I know that horse," said General Schuy- 
ler, " and have seen him out before. He will go, I am sure." 
His memory was correct. I had obtained, as it appeared, 
from the English dealer, who owned him, a well-bred, fast 
little horse named Fidget, which had been regularly hunted 
during the previous year. He was a capital horse, as I after- 
wards discovered, well up to my weight, and ready to go 
anywhere or jump anything; rather uneasy if checked, but 
perfect to go. My companion's suggestion, however, was 
quite sufficient for me. I asked nothing better than to 
follow the hounds, and was entirely ready to take my 
chances. So off we went. My horse, I soon found, knew 
his business, and after we had crossed the first stone wall 
no doubt as to his jumping power again entered my mind, 
for at sixteen I had no nerves, a possession of which I 
became painfully conscious forty years later, after having 
ridden many horses and jumped countless fences— one of the 
penalties of age. Nothing, I think, ever quite equals a 
first day with the hounds if one is born with a love of horses 
and riding. There have been many, many such days since 
in my life, glorious at the moment, delightful in retrospect, 
but none ever quite gave me the sensation of that first ex- 



174 EARLY MEMORIES 

perience on the Roman Campagna. I finished with the 
first flight and went home with my head in the clouds. To 
ride a good horse across country after hounds seemed to me 
the finest thing that a man could do. One does not think of 
falls at that age ; and I had been lucky, so that accidents did 
not enter into my vision at all. As long as we remained in 
Rome I hunted regularly, and went out whenever the hounds 
met. 

Apart from the joys and excitement of riding across 
country I found other interests in hunting. I came to know 
the country with a thoroughness obtainable in no other way, 
and I made some pleasant acquaintances. The master was 
a nobleman of one of the great Roman houses. I do not 
recall his name, but I remember him well : a tall, handsome 
man, superbly mounted on a big black horse. I looked at 
him with admiring eyes from a distance, but I made per- 
sonal acquaintance with the huntsmen and the whips, who 
were all Englishmen. My chief friend, however, was the 
man from whom I hired my horse, who was also an English- 
man. He kept a stable of hunters which he rented and sold. 
He also went out with some of his patrons and had an eye 
upon them in the field, and he helped the whips with the 
hounds. He was a middle-aged man, tall, slender, always 
dressed in black, and one of the best riders I ever met. I 
saw him one day perform a really remarkable feat of riding, 
one which required an unusual amount of nerve and judg- 
ment. There was a young Austrian countess accompanied 
by her husband, who rode regularly with us. She was very 
handsome, and a good but a wild and reckless rider. One 
day when we were going very fast we came suddenly upon 
a lonely farmhouse with a very small paddock or yard ad- 
joining it. The hounds broke at the farmyard, and for a 
moment the line was not clear. We all checked except the 
countess, who for some unexplained reason, perhaps from 



EUROPE : 1866-1867 175 

a failure to control her horse, rode straight at the paddock 
fence, which was at least five feet high, and of stiff rails. 
Her horse struck and came down, and she was caught under 
him by her long skirt, such as was worn in those days. The 
danger that the horse would roll over her was imminent and 
pressing. There was no time to lose, but to jump into the 
paddock and at the same time in that contracted space to 
avoid the fallen horse was a desperate chance. My friend 
in black, however, in much less time than it takes me to 
tell it, jumped his horse over the five feet of rails, landed 
him at a standstill just clear of the countess, was off, and had 
her dragged clear of her struggling horse and on her feet 
before the rest of us realized what had happened. The 
countess escaped with a broken arm, I believe, but I have 
rarely seen more nerve and skill shown in taking a big 
jump than was displayed by the owner of my little horse 
on that occasion. 

The most interesting person, however, whom I met in the 
hunting-field that winter was Miss Charlotte Cushman, the 
actress. She was out every day with her nephew and his 
wife, all mounted on some very fine hunters which Miss 
Cushman had imported from Ireland. She was a very 
large, heavy woman, over fifty years of age then, and she 
rode carefully, but she also rode well and intelligently, and 
as she was perfectly mounted, kept up and saw all that was 
going on. One day when chance brought us side by side 
she spoke to me, and finding out who I was she at once 
showed kind and sympathetic interest, and we became great 
friends. We used to talk about things American and about 
horses and hunting, in regard to which she gave me many 
shrewd hints. She was a very intelligent and very agreeable 
woman as well as a fine actress. The fact that she had been 
on the stage made her especially interesting to me, with my 
love of the theatre, and I regarded her with admiration and 



176 EARLY MEMORIES 

extreme curiosity. But I never could muster up the courage 
to speak to her of her profession or of the stage or of acting. 
I had seen her act more than once, and had been greatly 
impressed by her power, all the more remarkable because it 
was by her art and her fine voice alone that she overcame 
her lack of beauty, which was very marked. Her greatest 
part was Meg Merrilies, where looks did not matter, but 
that which I remember best was her acting in Lady Macbeth, 
which is, I think, the greatest and most difficult woman's 
part in the whole range of tragedy. I have seen many 
actresses fail in it ; I have never seen any one approach suc- 
cess except Miss Cushman. She was an elderly woman 
when I saw her, large, stout, gray-haired, and plain, while 
Lady Macbeth is obviously still young and beautiful. Yet 
Miss Cushman made one forget everything except the great- 
ness of the part. She moved and stirred her audience, and 
I never shall forget the power of the sleep-walking scene, the 
reserve with which she played it, and the shuddering horror 
she conveyed. It stands out in my recollection as one of 
the few really great bits of acting which are met with in a 
lifetime. 

The last time I recall her in Rome was one day when we 
had a fine run in the neighborhood of Monte Mario. It was 
a damp day, the ground very wet and slippery, and we had to 
go down into and up again out of a number of deep ravines, 
or gulches, as they would be called in the West. The scent 
lay strong, we were having a good day, and these descents 
and ascents were trying and risky. Miss Cushman kept 
warning me to be careful, and finally, when we came to an 
unusually steep slope, she called out that if I kept on as I 
was going I should either break my neck or lame my horse. 
But I was sixteen ; I saw the hounds scrambling up the other 
side and then running straight with their heads up, and so 
down I went as fast as I could, my horse sliding almost on 



EUROPE : 1866-1867 x77 

his haunches. But he did not fall, and when I reached the 
top of the gully opposite we were in a level country, the pack 
going as fast as they could, and one of the finest runs I ever 
had was the result. The fox finally got away and went to 
earth, but there were few left to see even that ending, and 
I was filled with glory and satisfaction. Here is the diy 
contemporary account from my diary: 

"Hunt today. Meet at Monte Mario. Beautiful day. 
View very fine. First rate run, fox went to earth and did 
not kill. Best run I have had; the country was very slip- 
pery and there were lots of falls. Some of the views I had 
of the city were splendid. I rode home with a young Eng- 
lish man who was very pleasant and told me about English 
hunting." 

I recall the young Englishman well. He was very pleas- 
ant, but he brought my pride in my performances down 
with a hard thud by asking me if I had ever hunted in the 
Lincolnshire wolds. I knew where Lincolnshire was, but 
had very vague ideas as to the nature of a wold. I replied 
in the negative, without adding that I had never hunted 
anywhere except in Rome, and he then said kindly, but with 
the condescension described by Lowell, "Ah, you should 
see the hunting there if you want to know what really good 
hunting is," and I felt properly humbled. 

Much harder to bear was the way in which Miss Cush- 
man's prophecy came true. I find in the diary: "horse 
dead lame. Could not hunt." "Horse still lame — could 
not hunt." My rashness abbreviated my hunting sadly, 
but it was none the less a glorious day, that day at Monte 
Mario, and I think it was worth all it cost. 

From Rome we went to Naples, then back to Rome, and 
so north to Venice. Venice had just been liberated from 
Austria and become part of Italy, and her people were cele- 
brating the carnival, as may be supposed, with extraordinary 
gusto and brilliancy. Prince Amadeo, afterwards King of 



178 EARLY MEMORIES 

Spain, was there to give emphasis to the occasion, and I 
saw him several times. He was very popular, and at such 
a moment was received with intense enthusiasm. We saw, 
of course, all the usual sights, but that which was unusual 
and which interested me most was the Piazza, especially at 
night, filled, as it was, with maskers, with people in all sorts 
of fancy dresses, brilliantly illuminated and loud with music, 
noise, and fun of all kinds. 

From Venice we went to Vienna, and passed at once into 
a winter like that at home. At Vienna we found the Mot- 
leys, for Mr. Motley was our minister there, and they were, 
as ever, all that was most kind, hospitable, and delightful. 
We dined with them several times during our short stay, 
heard a great deal that was interesting about Vienna and 
about the Austrian aristocracy, with their absurd sixteen 
quarterings and their profound belief that they were still 
real and important. 

After Vienna came Prague and Dresden, then back to 
Paris and London, and thence home. I was so glad to be 
once more at home that even the East Boston wharf in the 
gray of the morning looked charming, and my return to Mr. 
DixwelFs ministrations for three weeks seemed actually de- 
lightful. But the few weeks were soon over, and in July I 
went out to Cambridge and was duly examined for admission 
to Harvard. At that time the examinations were largely 
oral, lasting three days, and one's fate was announced on 
Saturday afternoon almost immediately after the ordeal had 
ended. I got in without conditions, as did most of my 
friends at Mr. Dixwell's, and to have no conditions was the 
best that could be done then, when entrance honors were not 
conferred. Filled with triumph, I rushed into town, took 
the train, and drove rapidly home from Lynn to Nahant. 
The long summer twilight was just dying as I reached the 
house, and I saw the family gathered on the steps when I 
jumped out of the carriage. From the shadow came my 



EUROPE : 1866-1867 179 

mother's voice, anxiously asking, "What news?" to which, 
filled with mischief, I replied: "Four conditions." I can 
hear still my good mother's cry of disappointment, and the 
silence that fell upon the group could be felt. Then came 
the voice of Wendell Holmes, as he caught sight of my face : 
"The little villain! He is in without conditions." Much 
rejoicing followed. It was neither a very magnificent nor 
a very unusual achievement, but it was a large victory for 
me, and the night upon which I announced it is one which 
I remember as a very happy and satisfying occasion. 

In any event, I was thought by my partial family to 
have rewarded their pains in a measure at least, and I was 
allowed to do what I pleased with my summer. So I elected 
to go with my cousin Frank Hubbard to Canada, salmon- 
fishing. We went to Montreal, and thence to Quebec, one 
of the towns best worth seeing in the world, for there are 
very few so nobly placed and at once so picturesque and so 
full of a sense of strength. From Quebec we went down the 
St. Lawrence to the Saguenay, and thence to the Bersimis, 
where we camped out and enjoyed ourselves for that reason 
alone, although we had no luck at fishing. It was, I think, 
rather late in the season, and so we went back to Quebec 
and thence to Lake Champlain, and on into the Adirondacks, 
which were then a real wilderness. We camped out and did 
some shooting and fishing. I was guilty of shooting a buck 
in the water, a first and solitary offence of the kind, which 
I hope may be forgiven ; we also did some fishing with better 
success than in Canada, and enjoyed greatly going down the 
rivers and shooting the rapids in our big canoe. 

But everything comes to an end, nothing so certainly or 
so rapidly as a boy's holidays, and September found me in 
Cambridge, a wretched freshman, facing "Bloody Monday" 
as cheerfully as I could, and so beginning my college life. 



CHAPTER VIII 

HARVARD: 1867-1871 

If my career at Harvard was singularly devoid of either 
distinction or interest, it at least came at a very memorable 
period in the life of the college. I went in under the old 
system and came out under the new. I entered the college, 
which had remained in essence unchanged from the days of 
its Puritan founders, the college of the eighteenth century 
with its " Gratulatios " and odes and elegies in proper Latin 
verse when a sovereign died or came to the throne, the col- 
lege with the narrow classical curriculum of its English exem- 
plars, and I came out a graduate of the modern university. 
Doctor Thomas Hill was president when I entered, then 
came a year of interregnum, and then President Eliot. I 
think that I cannot add anything to this bare statement by 
way of describing the revolution which took place at that 
time in Harvard, and my class happened to come just at the 
parting of the ways. We realized that a great change had 
occurred, but naturally did not grasp its meaning or even 
dream how fast and far the change thus begun would go. 
No one, I think, could have imagined the vast growth of the 
university in every direction under the administration of 
President Eliot. My class, to take a single illustration, 
numbered one hundred and fifty-eight at graduation. It 
was much the largest class which had ever entered the col- 
lege or graduated from it, and was not surpassed in numbers 
for some years afterwards. Now a class at Harvard is three 

180 



HARVARD : 1867-1871 181 

or four times as large as mine, and a single class has not in- 
frequently more members than all the undergraduates to- 
gether in 1867-1871. 

The enormous increase in the number of students, how- 
ever, is, after all, only one manifestation of the changes 
wrought at Cambridge during the last forty years. As I am 
not writing a history of modern Harvard, I shall not attempt 
to describe, still less to analyze or criticise, this great revolu- 
tion in the oldest university in America, which in its course 
has had a profound effect upon all education in the United 
States. I shall allude to only two things : one, the passing 
of an old custom in which I was concerned and which marked 
by its departure the rapid obliteration of the eighteenth- 
century college then in progress, while the other was the 
effect which one of the most important of the modern re- 
forms had upon me personally. 

In the old days there was a solemn and public perform- 
ance which took place in the autumn, consisting of exercises 
like those of commencement, with orations, dissertations, 
and addresses, and preceded by a procession, as on the great 
occasion of graduation. This ceremony was called the 
"Junior Exhibition," and had given rise to a burlesque ver- 
sion which was known as "mock parts," and which took 
place at the same time. The real "Exhibition" had been 
abandoned before I entered college, but the parody survived. 
A committee of the junior class was appointed and wrote 
an account of an imaginary procession in which members 
of the class figured in various ridiculous capacities. Then 
followed the announcement of the parts, much more numer- 
ous than in the real performance, and covering practically 
all members of the junior class. These parts were sent in 
to or devised by the committee, and consisted chiefly of 
quotations which were supposed to jeer at or hit off the 
foibles and peculiarities of the unfortunate boy to whom 



182 EARLY MEMORIES 

the part was assigned. To give an example drawn from an- 
other class than my own: 

"A Dissertation 

The Great Erymanthian Boar, 

John Harvard Stoughton." 

A few, a very few, of the parts were complimentary. The 
mock part of our first scholar was, for instance: "And lo! 
Ben Adhem's name led all the rest." Most of the gibes, 
however, were chaff and jokes, doing no harm and, perhaps, 
some good; but there was always a certain proportion di- 
rected against unpopular men which were often harsh and 
sometimes cruel. 

The ceremony took place on a Saturday morning after 
recitations. The classes were drawn up in a hollow square 
in front of Hollis, the juniors facing the building, the seniors 
on the right, the sophomores on the left, and the freshmen, 
with no assigned place, hovering on the outside. Then the 
chairman of the committee, a post which I filled in 1869, 
seated himself on the sill of a first-floor window in Hollis 
with his legs swinging in vacancy and proceeded to read 
the account of the procession and then the parts amid the 
plaudits and laughter of the crowd, which, like most crowds, 
not only had a love of fun, but enjoyed the infliction of a 
little suffering. I read the parts effectively and successfully, 
so that everybody heard them, and took considerable pride 
in my fleeting notoriety. But I soon had reason to regret 
my brief hour of triumph. Some of the men who were 
wounded never forgave me, and I found to my surprise that 
I was held responsible for all the parts, which were the work 
of many hands and which had been approved and selected 
by the entire committee. I felt much hurt as well as aston- 
ished by this popular injustice, but I subsequently discov- 
ered that it was common in larger matters and to more 



HARVARD : 1867-1871 183 

numerous, older, and larger populations than college boys 
can furnish. No successor, however, was destined to suffer 
in the same way. The custom of "mock parts" was then 
considered to be as permanent as the college itself, but the old 
habits were changing, and reform was in the air. The next 
class, which was more virtuous than ours, not only voted to 
give up hazing, in which we had indulged and from which 
we had suffered, but they also determined to abolish "mock 
parts." That was the end of it; it was never revived, and 
the college in a few years had forgotten and outgrown the 
parody of an extinct ceremony. Thus it came to pass that 
I had the distinction of being the last student to read "mock 
parts" at Harvard. Now, all these years afterwards, when 
the little stings which I inflicted and which were inflicted 
upon me have long since ceased to smart, I am glad to think 
that I was connected with the old college times of which 
"mock parts" were emblematical and which I saw depart. 
If I could not save them — and they probably were not worth 
saving, these old customs — I did my duty by them at least 
once and stood on the shore and waved one of them a cheer- 
ful farewell as it drifted off down the stream of time. I felt 
a good deal of excitement and elation at the moment, be- 
cause, except for my involuntary presence in the witness-box 
at Lawrence, it was my first appearance in public, and I 
succeeded before my first audience. It left, moreover, an 
indelible impression on my mind. I do not know how it 
may be with others, but with me it often happens that a 
familiar scene remains inextricably associated with a par- 
ticular day and a particular event. There are few places 
in the world more familiar to me than the college yard at 
Cambridge, but when I see it in the mirror of memory the 
image before me is what I saw as I sat in the window of 
"Hollis" on that day of "mock parts." Perhaps it was the 
position, probably even more the event, but I always think 



184 EARLY MEMORIES 

of the yard as it looked that morning. It was early autumn, 
and the elms, not yet shorn of leaves, still drew their arches 
across the sky. The warm red of the old buildings, with 
"University" gray and cold in the distance, gave color to 
the scene. And over all was that pleasant atmosphere of 
the past so rare in America, that sense of quiet and repose 
which tradition and habit give, and the feeling that behind 
the laughing crowd gathered there before me could be heard 
the footfall of the successive generations who had trodden 
that pleasant spot and thence passed out into the world 
beyond. 

The other incident connected with the revolution in the 
college system which began in the middle of my course was 
widely different from the last observance of an old college 
custom. There was nothing about it with a tinge of senti- 
ment. It was merely a result of the reform which found 
one of its chief expressions in the extension of the elective 
system. Timidly and tentatively there had come a move- 
ment in this direction before the arrival of President Eliot, 
as light and separated gusts of wind precede the rush of the 
thunder-storm. We therefore found ourselves at the end 
of our sophomore year with a considerable latitude of choice. 
I did not question the virtues of the new system then, be- 
cause, dexterously managed, it opened a generous oppor- 
tunity for lightening the burden of studies. I have had a 
good many doubts about its perfections since. Under the 
old compulsory plan a certain amount of knowledge, no more 
useless than any other, and a still larger amount of discipline 
in learning were forced upon all alike. Under the new sys- 
tem it was possible to escape without learning anything at 
all by a judicious selection of unrelated studies in subjects 
taken up only because they were easy or the burden imposed 
by those who taught them was light. I do not intend to 
argue the merits of the case, but desire merely to explain 



HARVARD : 1867-1871 185 

the effect upon myself. I wished to take my degree with 
as little effort as possible, and so arranged my recitations 
as to give myself the largest possible spaces of uninter- 
rupted time for my own amusements. This was not the 
ambition of serious and right-minded students; but the 
majority of undergraduates are not very serious, and my 
practical view of the advantages of the elective system is 
still, I think, popular. In any event, the results to me were 
unfortunate. I had been thoroughly drilled under the old 
system in Latin and Greek, and having some aptitude in 
languages I had learned to read both with facility. I could 
read any Latin at sight, and easy Greek; that is, in my 
sophomore year, when we were reading the Crito and the 
Gorgias, I never had to prepare for a recitation, as I could 
construe at sight whenever called upon. If I had gone on 
with my Greek and Latin I should have become so thor- 
oughly grounded in both that they would have remained 
with me through life. But the enlarged elective system was 
a fatal temptation. I threw over mathematics, of course, 
and that was no loss, for I never should have retained any 
learning of that kind. But I also discarded my classics, 
because the hours were not convenient or for some equally 
trivial reason. The result was that, although I have man- 
aged to retain my Latin and have read it all my life suffi- 
ciently well for pleasure, my Greek, which I kept up for a few 
years after leaving college, was lost in the pressure of other 
employments, and now I can only read it with difficulty and 
have not leisure to recover it. So it comes to pass that I 
think with sorrow of my own folly and entertain serious 
doubts as to the perfection of that unrestricted freedom of 
election which gave my folly scope and opportunity. Of the 
so-called studies with which I replaced the classics, I have 
for the most part forgotten even the names. Two courses, 
German and Italian, which I selected were not wholly use- 



186 EARLY MEMORIES 

less, and gave me a smattering of two modern languages 
which was not without value, and in the case of Italian de- 
veloped into a source of knowledge and pleasure. I also 
had sufficient sense to take a course in English literature 
with Lowell, although I stupidly missed the opportunity to 
study Dante with him. But the English literature was 
something. It encouraged a strong natural taste and gave 
it direction. It also brought me into contact with one of 
the most brilliant men of his day and one of the best worth 
knowing. I came to know him better in the after-years; 
but I like to think that I was one of his students, and lis- 
tened to that beautiful voice and delightful English and 
heard his witty and pregnant criticisms which were the best 
part of his teaching. 

But in all my four years I never really studied anything, 
never had my mind roused to any exertion or to anything 
resembling active thought until in my senior year I stum- 
bled into the course in mediaeval history given by Henry 
Adams, who had then just come to Harvard. How I came 
to choose that course I do not exactly know. I was fond of 
history, liked to read it, and had a vague curiosity as to the 
Middle Ages, of which I knew nothing. I think there was 
no more intelligent reason than this for my selection. But 
I builded better than I knew. I found myself caught by 
strong interest, I began to think about the subject, Mr. 
Adams roused the spirit of inquiry and controversy in me, 
and I was fascinated by the stormy careers of the great 
German emperors, by the virtues, the abilities, the dark 
crimes of the popes, and by the tremendous conflicts be- 
tween church and empire in which emperors and popes were 
antagonists. In just what way Mr. Adams aroused my 
slumbering faculties I am at a loss to say, but there can be 
no doubt of the fact. Mr. Adams has told me many times 
that he began his course in total ignorance of his own sub- 



HARVARD : 1867-1871 187 

ject, and I have no doubt that the fact that he ; too, was 
learning helped his students. But there was more than this. 
He had the power not only of exciting interest, but he t / 
awakened opposition to his own views, and that is one great 
secret of success in teaching. In any event, I worked hard in 
that course because it gave me pleasure; I took the highest 
marks, for which I cared, as I found, singularly little, be- 
cause marks were not my object, and for the first time I got 
a glimpse of what education might be and really learned 
something. I have never lost my interest in the Othos, 
the Henrys, and the Fredericks, or in the towering figure 
of Hildebrand. They have always remained vital and full 
of meaning to me, and a few years ago I made a pilgrimage 
to Salerno with Adams himself to see the burial-place of 
the greatest of the popes, who had brought an emperor to 
his feet and had died a beaten exile. Yet it was not what I 
learned, but the fact that I learned something, that I dis- 
covered that it was the keenest of pleasures to use one's 
mind, a new sensation, and one which made Mr. Adams's 
course in the history of the Middle Ages so memorable to 
me. I have often wondered since, in view of this experi- 
ence, why there is so little real education to be had, and 
why, as a rule, what passes under that name is so dry and 
meaningless and sometimes so repulsive. 

From this outline of my intellectual experiences at Har- 
vard, a dispassionate and serious-minded observer would 
say that my four years at Harvard were wasted, and so, in 
one way, I suppose they were. In the largest sense they 
were, I think, anything but wasted, and I look back upon 
them without remorse and with great pleasure, which is, 
perhaps, a humiliating confession, as college is supposed to 
be a place primarily if not wholly for education and the 
improvement of one's mind, and I got very little of either. 
I detested school, and I think the "happy school-days" 



188 EARLY MEMORIES 

theory is a popular fallacy of an entirely conventional 
kind. On the other hand, I enjoyed college thoroughly 
and had four very happy years at Harvard. I was very 
idle and devoted my energies to amusing myself, with 
great success and in the manner and with the intelligence 
common to that stage of life. I meant to go through col- 
lege, and I did so without ever being conditioned, graduating 
near the end of the first half of my class. But I intended 
also to effect this purpose with the least possible trouble and 
effort to myself and with the minimum of mental labor, 
and in this, too, I succeeded. I desired also to enjoy myself 
as much as possible, and I did this, too. I took a sufficiency 
of exercise, both at the gymnasium and on the river, because 
I was fond of it, but without any ambition for distinction 
in those directions, and yet from the boat and from spar- 
ring and single-stick I derived not only wholesome habits 
of exercise, but an amount of real good which it would be 
hard to estimate. They were certainly far more profita- 
ble than billiards and cards, to which I also gave a great 
deal of attention, so much, indeed, that I have never cared 
for them since. But my greatest and most profitable en- 
joyments were derived from the many friendships I then 
made or continued. Most of them have lasted through 
life, a few have been among my best possessions, and all, 
I find, no matter how far time and circumstances may 
have brought separations in place or occupations or inter- 
ests, have kept the flavor of those early days, something 
which no other days can give. I was fortunate enough to 
be elected a member of all the societies I desired to join. 
Two of them were theatrical, and this opened a field which 
had always held for me a strong fascination. In our sopho- 
more society I made a hit as a Yorkshireman in one of 
Kenny's comedies at the first performance given by our 
class. I imagine that the dialect which I saw fit to adopt 



HARVARD : 1867-1871 189 

was as remote from the speech of Yorkshire as it was from 
any other spoken by men. But my audience was as ignorant 
as I, and since it succeeded with them there was nothing 
more to be desired. At all events, it fixed my fate. I was 
thought to have histrionic capacity, and from that time for- 
ward I had a leading part at eveiy performance and was 
usually either the acting or the stage manager. Tins con- 
tinued in the Hasty Pudding during my junior and senior 
years, and I finally extended my theatrical activities to 
authorship, writing, in collaboration with our class poet, 
Henry Swift, a rhymed burlesque of " Don Giovanni," adapt- 
ing our songs to those of the opera and to popular airs by 
other composers less eminent than Mozart. Not being a 
singer, I had no part in the burlesque, but only in the farce 
of "Two in the Tower," which preceded it. The burlesque, 
however, had an enormous success, and I regret the loss of 
its precious text more than that of the missing books of 
Livy, for I should like now to read over those jingles and 
see just how bad they were, and try to determine whether 
there was anything but the spirit of youth which caused 
them to give so much hilarious pleasure both to the listen- 
ers and to their proud authors. 

My taste for the theatre, however, led me in those col- 
lege years to many performances by persons more expe- 
rienced than I or my friends, and among these performances 
were some worth remembering. It was the college fashion 
in my day for freshmen to go on as "supes" when soldiers, 
peasants, courtiers, and the like were required in the Italian 
operas which we chiefly affected. There was much com- 
petition for the limited number of places, and I suppose 
that the man charged with securing supernumeraries took 
us because we not only served for nothing, but were ready 
to pay for the privilege, which meant money in his pocket 
instead of the usual outlay. Indeed, there could have been 



190 EARLY MEMORIES 

no other reason for our employment, as we must have been 
most undesirable assistants. We went for our own amuse- 
ment, not to promote the success of the opera or the play. 
We were undisciplined and recalcitrant; if there was any- 
thing to be done in the way of marching or moving about 
or shouting or dancing, we did it with great violence; and we 
were especially disturbing with the supernumerary ladies, 
who were not volunteers, and with whom we were more popu- 
lar than we were with the singers, actors, and managers. I 
remember well one occasion when, in the first act of " Don 
Giovanni," we were deputed in our capacity as soldiers to 
bear from the stage the body of the murdered Commendador. 
Four stalwart youths, members of the crew, were told off 
for this duty. They grasped the arms and legs of the un- 
fortunate father of Donna Anna and whipped him up so 
vigorously and easily that they wrenched his arms and tore 
his clothes, bearing Mm lightly from the stage amid a cloud 
of Italian curses. But it was all very good fun for fresh- 
men and gave one a knowledge of stage management and 
stage effects and theatrical people which, if not profitable, 
was certainly entertaining. 

I shall say nothing of the endless plays of all kinds which 
I attended at that time, for it was in those days the fashion 
with students to haunt the theatres; but there were a few 
actors whom I then saw who are worthy of recollection. It 
was then that I again saw Edwin Forrest, of whom I have 
already spoken, and whom I had seen in "Metamora," 
which was violent, absurd, and popular. I now witnessed, 
and with better understanding I hope, his performance of 
"Richelieu" and of " Hamlet," in which he was very fine. 
He was then, of course, an elderly man, and perhaps for that 
reason subdued; but his Hamlet was singularly strong and 
impressive, the performance of a really great actor in accord- 
ance with the traditions of the English stage. He did not 



HARVARD : 1867-1871 191 

equal Edwin Booth, whom I saw constantly then and after- 
wards, for Booth was not only unsurpassed as Hamlet, but 
unrivalled in the great Shakespearean roles by any one I 
have ever seen in America, in England, or in Europe. At 
about that same time I saw Charles Kean and his wife 
(Ellen Tree). Kean w T as the very reverse of Forrest. He 
was an excellent actor, educated, cultivated, trained, but 
without a spark of genius so far as I could perceive. He 
was admirable as Louis XI, although not so perfect as Irving, 
who seemed to have been born for that particular part. 
Mrs. Kean was veiy fine as Queen Katherine, and I have 
never seen any one who approached her beautiful perform- 
ance of the fool in "Lear." 

At that period also, when I had just entered college, I 
heard Mrs. Kemble and Dickens read: the one from Shake- 
speare, the other from his own books. Mrs. Kemble was 
then a stout, elderly woman, and her beauty, so famous in 
her youth, had faded. She came upon the stage of the Music 
Hall in Boston plainly dressed in black. There were no 
theatrical adjuncts, no artificial aids of any kind. She read 
the "Merchant of Venice," and in five minutes one was con- 
scious only of her dignity, the beauty of her voice, the marvel 
of her dramatic presentation. I sat entranced as the play 
gradually unrolled itself before my mental vision, as the 
characters, carefully differentiated by the voice alone, passed 
over the stage, and as the exquisite poetiy chimed and mur- 
mured in my ears. 

Dickens was a sharp contrast. I had a boyish adoration 
of his books, and I looked forward with intense excitement 
to seeing and hearing him. I heard him several times, and 
I shall never forget the joy of listening to the trial scene from 
"Pickwick." Yet after it was all over the general effect left 
on my mind was a feeling of vague disappointment. I could 
not have explained that feeling then, but I think that I can 



192 EARLY MEMORIES 

now. Dickens as an actor, and he acted in his readings, 
was vivid, effective, full of force, energy, and dramatic power; 
but he lacked exactly what Mrs. Kemble possessed — dignity, 
reserve, refinement, scholarship, and high training. You 
never forgot for a moment that Mrs. Kemble was a lady. 
You were haunted by a suspicion that Dickens was not 
quite a gentleman; that somewhere there lurked the traces 
of the London cockney. I say this as a devoted lover and 
admirer of Dickens. His books and his characters have 
been my lifelong friends and companions. He had a great 
and noble genius, an imagination which was as vivid as it 
was fertile and original. I admire him more now, I place 
him higher than I ever did before, but I see the deductions 
which a sane criticism must make and I realize the defects 
which escaped the indiscriminate admiration of boyhood. 
The creative imagination, the unending humor, the hatred 
of wrong, the fierce satire which has never been enough 
appreciated, the eternal quality so admirably pointed out 
by Mr. Chesterton, are all there from beginning to end. 
Moreover, Dickens never ceased to improve as an artist. 
He was always advancing in construction, in style, and in 
force, even when his marvellous creative power seemed to 
slacken. But his tendency toward melodrama, although it 
diminished, never wholly left him. I have always loved 
"Nicholas Nickleby"; so much, indeed, that I do not resent 
Ralph Nickleby saying, " My curse, my bitter, deadly curse, 
upon you, boy!" after the manner of the Surrey theatres. 
But the atrocious vulgarity of his associate and titled vil- 
lains, and the unbearable goodness and clamorous benevo- 
lence of the Cheeryble brothers in that same great story, 
were too much for me even in my youthful days. Yet while 
one can forgive the cheap melodrama, one cannot forgive 
the cheap pathos, the "wallowing naked in the pathetic," 
the resort to the death and suffering of children to extort a 



HARVARD : 1867-1871 193 

tragic effect, the false sentiment of "Little Nell" and the 
rest, which are as unreal and hollow and as bad art as the 
metred prose in which that heroine's death is told. It was 
an undefined sense of these very things which came to me 
when I saw Dickens. The humor, the effectiveness, the 
way in which he embodied his characters, were all very 
wonderful; but his somewhat overdressed appearance and 
conscious air, and, above all, the fact that he was stagey 
when he should have been dramatic, left a light but unmis- 
takable flavor of rather second-rate pathos and melodrama 
from which there was no escape. Much as I admired the 
performance, and eager as I was to hear him, when it was 
all over there lingered at the back of my mind a slight sense 
of disappointment; a feeling that the great imaginative 
writer who was and had always been so much to me lacked 
something which he ought to have possessed. 

All these things, all these little amusements, these long- 
faded successes and mishaps, as well as the thought of the 
friends and the friendships of those days which memory 
brings in her train, do not make up a very inspiring record 
of a time which should have been devoted to the advance- 
ment of learning. It sounds, now that it is written down 
here, like the story of an idle and unprofitable boy. Yet 
there is no phase of it to which I do not look back with 
pleasure; there is none of it from which I would part withal. 
I am not sure that it did not have a real value of its own. I 
think that it fitted me much better for the world than if I had 
never gone to Harvard. It undoubtedly gave me affections 
and friendships which could have been acquired in no other 
way. It is certain, above all, that I achieved one main pur- 
pose of a liberal education — a respect for the work of other 
men in other fields of which I knew nothing. With this 
came a tolerance for the pursuits and passions of others, 
and, thanks to Henry Adams, I was imbued with a realizing 



194 EARLY MEMORIES 

sense of my own abounding ignorance, which is the first 
rung on the ladder of learning and the best education that 
any college or university can give. 

The greatest event to me, however, during my four 
years at Harvard had no connection whatever with the 
university. In my junior year I became engaged to the 
eldest daughter of Rear-Admiral Davis, and to him and to 
the family into which I was then brought, I owe in large 
measure the affection and the happiness which life has ac- 
corded to me. Bred in the Boston schools, Admiral Davis 
entered Harvard in the class of 1825, but left the college 
at the end of his sophomore year to go into the navy. His 
career in the navy was a long and distinguished one. He 
was a man of high attainments in the exact sciences, and 
his early work in the service after his first years at sea was 
largely scientific. In this field he gained much distinction. 
He was engaged in the first work of the Coast Survey. He 
was one of the founders of the Nautical Almanac, and he 
found time to translate Gauss's "Theoria Motus," a trans- 
lation winch, I believe, has never been superseded. But he 
was, above all, a sailor and a naval officer. He made many 
long cruises, and it was he who rescued and brought off 
Walker and his companions after their filibustering expedi- 
tion in Nicaragua. When the war broke upon the country, 
he was eminent in the group of younger officers who came at 
once to the front and upon whom the burden of our decisive 
naval operations fell. He was fleet captain with Dupont, 
they were very intimate friends, and together they planned 
and carried out the expedition under the latter's command 
which resulted in the capture of Port Royal, one of the most 
important, as it was the first, of our great naval successes. 
Admiral Davis received rapid promotion, and not long after 
succeeded Foote in command on the Western rivers. He 
fought and won the battle of Memphis, where he destroyed 



HARVARD : 1867-1871 195 

the rebel flotilla, and soon after was again successful in 
the fight at Fort Pillow. For these victories he received 
the thanks of Congress. 

Broken down by the river fever, he was obliged to give 
up his command and return to Washington, where he was 
put at the head of the Bureau of Navigation, which he or- 
ganized, and where he acted as chief of staff. Toward the 
close of the war he was appointed superintendent of the 
Naval Observatory, the highest scientific post in the navy. 
When I first knew him he had just returned from a three 
years' cruise in command of our South American squadron. 
Handsome and distinguished-looking, of pronounced mili- 
tary bearing, I have never known any man more charming 
or more lovable. In his perfect simplicity, in his absolute 
courage, in his purity of mind and generosity of spirit, he 
always made me think of Colonel Newcome. But, unlike 
Thackeray's hero, he was a man of the world in the best 
sense, of high professional ability and unusual intellectual 
force. A more delightful friend and companion it would be 
difficult to imagine. He had seen cities and men, he had 
been in all parts of the world, and had looked upon it with 
a broad sympathy and a complete understanding. His 
manners were not only delightful, but I thought then, and 
think still, were quite perfect. It has long been a habit 
both in speech and writing to describe manners one wishes 
to commend as those of "a gentleman of the old school." 
This has always seemed to me a misleading phrase, involv- 
ing the error of confusing the incidental with the permanent. 
Differences in manners — and by manners I do not, of course, 
mean customs, but only those purely personal attributes 
which are the results of training and tradition, such as are 
implied in the words "old school" — are the superficial, acci- 
dental differences of time and place. Really fine manners, 
I think, must have been, and must always be, in essence the 



196 EARLY MEMORIES 

same. I never, for instance, saw finer manners than those 
of the famous Chief Joseph, a blanket Indian, in his full 
panoply of war-bonnet and paint, one night at a White 
House reception. Good manners, whatever the outward 
changes and differences at different periods in histoiy, must 
be sympathetic, considerate, and, above all, distinguished; 
and if they have these qualities in high degree, then they are 
good without regard to details of dress or morals or form of 
expression. Tried by this standard, no one could have had 
finer manners than Admiral Davis, and if we add that they 
might be described as of the "old school," it merely means 
that we have fallen on a time which, unfortunately, thinks 
less of good maimers than our ancestors did a hundred years 
ago. 

Admiral Davis had travelled also in "the realms of 
gold" as widely as among the kingdoms of earth, and he 
loved literature and learning in every form. He was a 
scholar in the old-fashioned sense, and the Latin classics 
were more with him almost than those of his own speech, 
or of any of the modern tongues in which he was versed, 
for he was an accomplished linguist. This love of letters 
never waned. He told me that he meant to take up his 
Greek again when he had retired from active service — a time, 
alas, which never came — and devote himself to that great 
literature which he felt that he had too much neglected. 
His favorite book was Shakespeare, whom he seemed to 
know almost by heart, the fruit of long voyages, when he 
read and read again the few books which he could take with 
him on his ship. His second love was Virgil, and the Vir- 
gilian lines were constantly on his lips. The grace and dis- 
tinction of the gentlest and most refined of Roman poets 
peculiarly appealed to him. 

But more than all his accomplishments was the nature 
of the man himself. No mean or low thought ever crossed 



HARVARD : 1867-1871 197 

his mind. High-minded himself to the last degree, it was 
a positive pain to him to hear, still more to believe, anything 
ill of anyone. His gentleness and kindness were not those 
of the weakly good-natured, but of the man of strength and 
courage, who would do his duty without fear or favor, and 
who hated evil and evil-doers. He had an infinite humor 
and a love of nonsense and fun, ever among the most en- 
dearing of qualities. One could say of him, with the slight 
change which sex commands, as Steele said of Lady Eliza- 
beth Hastings, that to know him was a liberal education. 
He had the secret of eternal youth, that gift so rarely be- 
stowed and which has such peipetual charm. With all his 
experience of life, with all his labors and activities, he never 
grew old in heart or mind. Age and years appeared to have 
no relation to him. The freshness of the dawn was ever 
upon him, and when, paying at last the long-delayed penalty 
of his hard service in the war, he suddenly broke down at 
the age of seventy, it seemed to all that he had died prema- 
turely and in the flush of youth. 

That others felt about him as I did, and saw in him the 
qualities I have tried to describe, is shown by the following 
letter from Mr. Motley, the historian, who was one of the 
admiral's lifelong friends. 



'to 



London, 22nd March, 1877. 

MY DEAR CABOT: — 

Your last letter was more than six months ago (11th of July, 
'76) and I did not think that one so interesting and instructive 
would have remained so long without a reply. 

But before I say another word on any other topic let me tell 
you that my object today is to beg you to express to your wife 
and her mother my deep, true and tender sympathy with them in 
the great affliction which has befallen them in the death of Admiral 
Davis. 

It is only within two or three days that I learned the sad event 



198 EARLY MEMORIES 

in the newspapers, for I have had no letters from home for some 
time. 

I grieve most truly for you all, for I know full well what he was, 
and although he has been permitted to attain to a ripe age and 
to round into fullness a bright, noble and consistent career, yet 
these reflections cannot mitigate the pangs of such a loss. The 
longer such a man lives, the more he must become endeared to 
those nearest and dearest to him. 

All that friends can do is to utter words of sympathy and of 
full appreciation of his virtues and high qualities. 

His public career is part of our history. To be highly dis- 
tinguished both in the practical and the scientific part of the noble 
profession to which his life was devoted and which he adorned, is 
much. But it was permitted him to write his name in bright 
letters on the most trying, eventful and heroic page of our history 
and there it must remain so long as we have a history. 

Death comes to all, but when it comes to end a life which has 
been filled full of honorable actions, of devotion to duty, of chival- 
rous inspiration, our deepest regrets are rather for the survivors 
than for the dead. 

For myself I shall always be glad that I had the great pleasure 
of seeing him in the midst of his family at Nahant during the 
summer of 75, which I passed among you all. 

He was, I am proud to say, my friend from early years and he 
is associated with many of the brightest and tenderest remem- 
brances of my life. He was the valued friend of one dearer to 
me than life and it is impossible for me to think of him or of your 
mother-in-law without thinking of Her. 

And he always seemed to me the same man — in youth and in 
advanced years — of the same simple, truthful, genial, sympathetic, 
unaffected presence, thoughtful and appreciative of others, un- 
demonstrative in himself — unchanged after he had achieved so 
much from what he was when his career was but just beginning. 

I shall always cherish his memory and once more I beg you to 
say all that can be said on my part of true feeling to Mrs. Davis 
and her daughter. 

I will say no more. 

I reserve for another day a letter which I need to write in answer 
to yours very soon. I hope you will write to me again whenever 
you can. Your letters are always very interesting to me. 



HARVARD : 1867-1871 199 

Give my best love to your Mother, in which, as well as to your 
Wife, Susie begs to join, and believe me 

Sincerely your friend, 

J. L. Motley 

On May 12, 1871, I came of age. On June 24 I received 
my degree, graduating entirely without distinction, near the 
end of the first half of the class. The following day I was 
married in the eighteenth-century Episcopal church, which 
faces the college yard and the Common, and looks across 
the old graveyard to the Unitarian church, with its high, 
sharp spire, on the other side. 

" Like sentinel and nun they keep 
Their vigil on the green; 
One seems to guard and one to weep, 
The dead that lie between." 

In August we set forth on a German liner for Europe, 
taking with us my wife's sister, Evelyn. The days of child- 
hood and youth, of school and college, of much enjoyment, 
of cheerful irresponsibility, were over. A new time had be- 
gun, and whatever else might happen the future was certain 
to bring growing responsibilities, for I had provided myself 
with that assurance as a preliminary. As I look back now 
to that parting of the ways I pause a moment before I leave 
the old days to say a word of the changes which have 
taken place in society between that time and this, in man- 
ners, in customs, and in the less serious things of life. 



CHAPTER IX 
RETROSPECT AND CONTRAST 

It is no more possible to draw definite lines dividing one 
part of life from another than it is to separate historical 
periods with exactness by the rigid number of a given cen- 
tury. Yet when a man passes from the irresponsibility of the 
years of school and college, when the artificial period fixed by 
law for coming of age is attained and coincides, as it did in 
my case, with marriage, with the assumption of responsi- 
bilities, and with the first vague questionings as to what 
one is to do with life, there seems at that moment as one 
contemplates the past a natural separation between that 
which has befallen us since the annus mirabilis and that 
which has gone before. The early days appear to be shut 
off from those which follow, although in reality they glided 
quite imperceptibly into each other. Looking back one 
instinctively pauses at this point, for just here the tempta- 
tion to compare the world and society as one knew them at 
the outset of life and as one knows them to-day, after forty 
years have wrought their changes, becomes irresistible. 

That human environment has altered- more in the last 
seventy years, since the first application of steam and elec- 
tricity to transportation and communication, than it had 
in two thousand or, indeed, in six thousand years previously, 
is a truism to those who have taken the trouble to consider 
this subject. Moreover, since the first application of steam 
and electricity the revolution in the conditions of human ex- 
istence has gone forward with constantly accelerating force 

and rapidity. When I was born the fundamental change 

200 



RETROSPECT AND CONTRAST 201 

had already taken place. For more than forty years the 
world had possessed the steamboat, for twenty years the 
railroad, and messages had been carried for six years at 
least by the electric wire. I have never known, therefore, 
the world and society as they were before these great instru- 
ments of communication and transportation existed. But 
these far-reaching inventions were nevertheless still in their 
infancy when I was advancing from the cradle to boyhood 
and from boyhood to manhood. The steamboat, although 
widely used, was still, comparatively speaking, undeveloped, 
especially on the ocean. Railroads were limited in extent 
and were even less developed than steamboats. The enor- 
mous spread of both in all quarters of the globe and the cor- 
responding increase in rapidity of movement have been the 
work of the last sixty years. The sleeping-car, the parlor- 
car, the fast through trains, the huge steamships, ten or 
twelve times as large as any existing in my boyhood, which 
now cross the Atlantic in less than a week, have all made 
their gradual appearance during my lifetime. In the world 
upon which I opened my eyes, and in which I lived and 
played contentedly for many years, there were no ocean 
cables and only a very limited system of telegraphs. I re- 
member the beginning of street railways, which in their 
growth and by the application of electricity as a motive 
power have revolutionized (there is no other word) local 
communications, upon which the daily life of the people so 
largely depends. I have seen the telephone appear and 
spread until it has grown insensibly to be an integral part of 
our existence. I have seen wireless telegraphy begin, electric 
lighting introduced, the motor-car come into general use, 
and if I should live a few years longer I shall, I suppose, be- 
hold, with the indifference born of familiarity, the outlines 
of flying-machines dark against the sky. There have been 
many other inventions, many marvellous scientific discov- 



202 EARLY MEMORIES 

eries, of course, in my time, but I mention only those which 
have changed radically human environment and the con- 
ditions of life, thereby affecting the evolution of the human 
race as only a changed environment can affect it. If new 
conditions powerful enough to produce evolutionary move- 
ments have been created, then society, customs, and man- 
ners, which are the mere reflections of the desires and tend- 
encies of mankind at any given moment, must be profoundly 
affected also by such extraordinary changes in environment. 
To any man who has lived beyond middle age, the altera- 
tions which he has witnessed and the contrasts between the 
world he knows and that in which he began life must be, and 
at almost any period of human history must have always 
been, very apparent. How much more startling are such 
changes and how much more profound and far-reaching when 
the years cover the birth and growth of new conditions more 
extreme in their meaning and effects than any which have 
occurred in man's environment within historic times! The 
men and women born between 1830 and 1870 who still live 
have passed through this period and, unconsciously for the 
most part, have watched these bewildering metamorphoses 
come and have beheld the new order establish itself. Reali- 
zing, as I think I do, these contrasts and changes, it is per- 
haps, not amiss to note them down. I am not concerned to 
decide whether the alterations in customs, society, and 
manners, born of the new environment and the new condi- 
tions of life, are in my opinion for better or worse. That is 
a matter of personal taste. One can take the Homeric posi- 
tion that the men of old time were worth more than those 
of the present, or, if one prefers, that of early Christian pes- 
simism, and hold, with Bernard of Clairvaux, that 

"The world is very evil, 
The times are growing late." 



RETROSPECT AND CONTRAST 203 

On the other hand, we can ; if we are of a cheerful tempera- 
ment, cling to the creed of the nineteenth century, that man- 
kind is steadily advancing and that we are moving slowly 
upward to perfection; or we can fall back on the opinion 
with which Machiavelli shocked the world, that, although 
customs alter, humanity is ever the same, never really pro- 
gressing, but always possessed of the same virtues and, still 
more distinctly, of the same vices. These are all arguable 
propositions, but I have no thought of arguing anything. 
I wish merely to point out certain facts without any attempt 
to pass judgment upon their merits or to praise or blame 
existing conditions. 

The society into which I was born and of which I became 
a part was, aside from politics, in its standards and fashions 
essentially English. The colonial habits of thought, veiy 
natural in their proper time, still held sway. In reading the 
reminiscences of Mr. George Russell and of Sir Algernon 
West, in which they contrast the society of their youth with 
London society as it is to-day, I was struck by the absolute 
identity of many of the vanished manners and customs 
which they recall with those which I remember. It seemed 
to me as if in many respects they were writing of the Boston 
which I knew as a boy. The dominance of English habits, 
fashions, and beliefs may have been more pronounced in 
Boston and New England than elsewhere in the United 
States, but I doubt if there was any serious difference. I am 
satisfied that American society, in its opinions and habits, 
was much the same in all the Atlantic States, that is, in 
the former colonies, and that they impressed their views 
upon the new Western States as the latter gradually emerged 
from the backwoods, pioneer stage of development. The 
books we read from those of childhood onward were English, 
our fashions of dress were English, our long, generous, heavy 
dinners were English; the ladies left the men in the dining- 



204 EARLY MEMORIES 

room, as in England, and as they still do in Boston, and the 
Continental habit of escorting the women from the dining- 
room to the drawing-room was unknown. Our literary 
standards, our standards of statesmanship, our modes of 
thought, apart from politics and diplomacy, where we were 
really independent, were as English as the trivial customs 
of the dinner-table and the ballroom. 

I turn to the "Autocrat," a really great book, which has 
not even yet come to its proper place, and there, at the very 
beginning, I find the delightful passage about mutual ad- 
miration societies. Doctor Holmes had read more widely, 
more curiously, more thoroughly, perhaps, than almost any 
man of his time, and analogies, illustrations, and quotations 
teemed in his memory and sprang into life as he wrote. Yet 
what are the examples he gives to sustain his theme of the 
mutual admiration societies of men of genius or talent? Two 
very local from New York and two examples from England, 
the Shakespearian and the Johnsonian groups. The poets 
of the "Pleiade," the men who gathered about Lorenzo de 
Medici or Petrarch or Boccaccio, the Venetian group of 
Aretino and Titian and Sansovino, the French Romanticists 
of 1830, and many others were as familiar to him as to the 
rest of the world, but instinctively, in order to illustrate his 
text, he takes two English groups and no others. Turn to 
Mark Twain's "Life on the Mississippi" and read there his 
satire about the influence of Scott as displayed in the South- 
ern fancy for the words "knightly" and "chivalrous," and 
for talking about "Norman blood" and "cavaliers" and all 
the rest of the stage machineiy of the famous novels — a 
queer trick which has endured to much later times than those 
of which I am writing at this moment. It all tells the same 
story of the manners, customs, and social ideals of the 
United States in the early Victorian period. 

The only foreign opinion which we heeded was that of 



RETROSPECT AND CONTRAST 205 

England, and we showed how much we cared about it by our 
childish sensitiveness to the arrogant and ignorant brutality 
which disfigured most English criticism. The colonial atti- 
tude of mind was displayed as clearly by the deep hatred of 
England which most Americans felt as it could have been 
by the most servile admiration. 

The English observers of changes in their own society 
note many alterations which are common to American society 
as well, but in the United States forces which had no exist- 
ence in England have been at work and have resulted in 
social changes far more sweeping and more profound than 
anywhere else. The colonial spirit and the English influ- 
ence have alike disappeared. The Civil War disposed of the 
one finally, and destroyed with it not only slavery but our 
crude and youthful sensitiveness to criticism, which was en- 
hanced, if not largely created, by the terrorized silence which 
slavery imposed. The huge increase of immigration, draw- 
ing its armies no longer from the British Isles alone, but 
from all Europe, has so diluted the English element that 
it is no longer all-important. Owing to our immigrants 
and to the vast development of communication and trans- 
portation, the United States, so far as its relations to other 
countries are concerned, has become cosmopolitan. I do 
not mean by this that we have ceased to have character- 
istics of our own. Far from it. The American character- 
istics have changed, and are still changing from those which 
were familiar and well-nigh universal when I was a boy, but 
they are none the less definite and are growing constantly 
more marked. The American of to-day is cosmopolitan in 
his attitude toward other countries, but he is more than ever 
strongly American. He is not open to Wentworth Higgin- 
son's criticism of a distinguished citizen of the United 
States that "to be really cosmopolitan a man must feel 
at home even in his own country." His patriotism cannot 



206 EARLY MEMORIES 

be more intense than that of his predecessor in the days 
before the Civil War, but it is more uniform and more con- 
tented. It remains to be seen whether it is capable of 
reaching the lofty heights attained in the war for the Union, 
but I am only comparing it with that which existed before 
the great uprising of the people to save their country. 
Seventy-five years ago our patriotism was restless, uneasy, 
self-assertive toward the rest of the world, while at home 
it was shadowed by the dark clouds of the slavery question 
and was suspicious and highly localized. The United States 
was divided by slavery, and when a man's patriotism was 
aroused it followed sectional lines and did not, as now, 
cover with impartial affection the entire country. Improve- 
ment in communications, the spread of railroads and tele- 
graphs, have had their part in this change as well as the 
sacrifices of the Civil War which wrought it. 

It is to steam and electricity, also, that we owe the 
material development of the country, which, under old con- 
ditions, it would have taken as many centuries almost as it 
has years to bring to its present point of wealth and pros- 
perity. This rapid development of practically unlimited 
natural resources has, of course, brought with it not only 
general prosperity, but huge and quickly acquired riches. 
Vast fortunes, of course, are no new thing. Poverty and 
wealth are as old as civilization. The money-maker, the 
speculator, and the financier were a class as familiar to 
ancient Rome as they are at this moment to London or 
New York or Paris. The tax-gatherers, the courtiers, the 
officials of Egypt, the Phoenicians circling the Mediterranean 
and stealing down the African and up the European coast, 
the Greek colonists and traders, the Athenian merchants, 
the mediaeval bankers of Italy and Germany, the Venetian 
ship-owners, the manufacturers of the Low Countries, the 
English nabobs of the East and West Indies, the London 



RETROSPECT AND CONTRAST 207 

bankers, were not essentially unlike the millionaires of to-day. 
That which differentiates our own time is the rapidity with 
which wealth has been amassed and the size of the fortunes 
which have been gathered. In these respects mankind has 
never seen their like, any more than it has seen railroads and 
steamboats and electricity or the thousand inventions by 
which we have been able to make the earth in a few months 
or years yield up its riches to our relentless grasp and to 
seize remorselessly and with reckless wastefulness every re- 
source which is offered by the bounty of nature. If we may 
believe Macaulay, Lars Porsena numbered among his fol- 
lowers a rich mine-owner: 

" Seius, whose eight hundred slaves 
Sicken in Ilva's mines." 

But the modern mine-owner, with highly paid free labor, 
is able to extract a colossal fortune from ore which Seius 
would have rejected as utterly worthless. Indeed, until 
within the last thirty years we had not gone far beyond the 
methods of mining which contributed to the wealth of the 
Etruscan king. 

In the United States, moreover, the change has not only 
been quicker, but the contrast with what had gone before 
is much more violent than in the Old World. The condi- 
tions of the Revolutionary days, when foreign observers ad- 
mired us because they found here neither great poverty nor 
great wealth, neither very rich nor very poor, but a general 
equality of well-being, had passed away long before my 
memories begin. Yet the difference, nevertheless, between 
1850 and 1913 is sufficiently striking. Some years ago, in 
1880, a Boston newspaper published a list of the principal 
taxpayers of Boston in the year 1830, giving the amount of 
the personal property upon which they were severally as- 



208 EARLY MEMORIES 

sessed. By far the richest man was taxed upon three hun- 
dred and fifty thousand dollars. There was no one else who 
came anywhere near this amount. When I was a boy a hun- 
dred thousand dollars was considered a comfortable property, 
and the very rich man, with wealth beyond the dreams of 
avarice, was spoken of as a millionaire. Now three hundred 
and fifty thousand dollars would be regarded, in fashionable 
society at least, as a very modest provision; a hundred 
thousand would be looked upon as genteel poverty; and to 
describe adequately a really rich man, we are forced to 
"multimillionaire," for a million is no longer great wealth. 
These simple figures imply, of course, a complete and uni- 
versal change in the scale of living and a corresponding al- 
teration in the social structure. Society, as I first remember 
it, was based on the old families; Doctor Holmes defines 
them in the "Autocrat" as the families which had held high 
position in the colony, the province, and during the Revolu- 
tion and the early decades of the United States. They repre- 
sented several generations of education and standing in the 
community. They had traditions running back not infre- 
quently to the first white settlement and the days of Eliza- 
beth and James. They had ancestors who had filled the 
pulpits, sat upon the bench, and taken part in the govern- 
ment under the crown; who had fought in the Revolution, 
helped to make the State and national constitutions and 
served in the army or navy; who had been members of the 
House or Senate in the early days of the Republic, and who 
had won success as merchants, manufacturers, lawyers, or 
men of letters. In many places people of this sort have been 
pushed out of sight, if not actually driven against the con- 
ventional wall. Unless they were able to hold on to a cer- 
tain amount of money or to add to their inherited fortune, 
they have been swept away. The persons who now fill 
society, as depicted in the depressing phrases and strange 



RETROSPECT AND CONTRAST 209 

language considered suitable to the subject by the daily 
press, are for the most part the modern, very modern, plu- 
tocrats who are widely different from their modest prede- 
cessors of the middle of the nineteenth century. In my 
early memory, the man who, rising from the ranks, had 
made a fortune and wished to establish himself, sought en- 
trance to the society of the old families and hoped, and 
sometimes endeavored, to marry his children among them. 
To the modern and recent plutocrat the old American family 
means nothing. He knows naught of the history or tradi- 
tions of his State and country, and cares less. He has but 
one standard, money or money's worth. He wants his chil- 
dren to marry money, and for that reason he prefers the 
children of other plutocrats, no matter how new, or he will 
buy a European title, because he comprehends that the title 
has value as a trade-mark and a trade-mark he understands. 
Old family, whether at home or abroad, no matter how dis- 
tinguished, if it is without a title, is meaningless to him. 
His theory, which he has every reason to believe to be sound, 
is that if he has enough money he can have everything he 
desires, and that his money will open to him all the social 
doors, not only in America, but in Europe, and that there 
is no court of the Old World which will not welcome him, no 
royal personage who will not receive him, if he only has 
money enough. Did not Mr. George Bernard Shaw, for 
once abandoning the tiresome paradox, say that when Mr. 
Carnegie landed in the British Isles all England was one 
universal cringe, and has any one had the hardihood to 
contradict him? 

u Novi homines," as the name imports, are no new thing 
under the sun. We should indeed fare ill if it were not for the 
men who, starting with nothing, make their own way to the 
top. They have always been a powerful class in every civili- 
zation of which we have knowledge; and in this class, as in 



210 EARLY MEMORIES 

every other, the members vary among themselves, from 
those who wear, as if born to it, the purple they have at- 
tained, to those who can only realize and understand mere 
money and who are the exponents of that vulgarity which 
is typical of their class, and which, indeed, they come very 
near monopolizing. So I am far from suggesting that the 
newly rich man is a modern phenomenon. He is as old as 
commercial civilization. What I would point out is merely 
that he is more portentous than fifty years ago or, indeed, 
than at any period of which we have record. The great in- 
ventions of the nineteenth century have so quickened every- 
thing that the plutocrat is richer than ever before and of 
larger and much more rapid growth. The pace has been so 
accelerated that families which were just struggling into 
position when I was young are now regarded as ancient and 
long established, so fast and in such numbers have the 
creations of the last twenty years crowded upon their heels. 
These newcomers have absorbed, in fact they are in large 
measure the fons et origo of the society columns of the news- 
papers, which they fill with their performances, with their 
entertainments, their expenditures, their marriages, their 
divorces, and their scandals. The world at large which 
reads those delectable columns believes that this is what 
constitutes fashionable society, and is probably quite right 
in so thinking. Whether it is what used to be technically 
called in an elder day "good" society is another question. 
These same people have also taken complete possession of 
the fashionable world itself in some places, and they are 
flagrant and not to be overlooked anywhere, either here or 

in Europe. 

In force, in insistence, in self-assertion and pretence, they 
do not, I imagine, differ widely from their prototypes dimly 
seen in the receding vistas. But they are much more numer- 
ous and much richer than their earlier predecessors. There 



RETROSPECT AND CONTRAST 211 

are two facts about them which seem to me to be new, 
although I venture the assertion of novelty with much 
diffidence. It seems to me that the children, the second 
generation, who come suddenly to the enjoyment of wealth 
which they have not earned, and who have no restraining 
habits or traditions, are in a surprisingly large proportion 
failures; sometimes degenerates who end in an early wreck. 
The girls do better, perhaps, than the boys, although the 
story of their marriages and divorces, both foreign and 
domestic, does not furnish an exhilarating subject either for 
contemplation or study. 

The other fact in regard to them which seems to me ob- 
vious is their lawlessness, their disregard of the rights of 
others, especially of others about whom they are not in- 
formed, and as they know only money, their information is 
limited. I do not mean by this to say merely that they 
are arrogant; that is an old characteristic of the type. I 
use the word "lawless" in its exact sense. They pay no 
regard to the laws of the land or the laws and customs of 
society if the laws are in their way. They seem to think 
that money warrants everything and can pay for everything, 
and that nothing must be allowed to stand in the way of 
what money wants. The maker of the sudden fortune may 
have disregarded written statutes and the unwritten laws 
of honor, but he did it consciously, certainly with full knowl- 
edge in the case of the statutes. His children, however, do 
it all unconsciously, so far as my observation goes, which 
means that they think themselves born to a position above 
the laws. There have been classes of people before who 
have taken this same view of their position, although on 
different and less ignoble grounds. But the result in modern 
times has been the same. When the people at large who 
had to obey the laws finally rose, the end was ruin to the 
lawless, and sometimes the guillotine. This process of 



212 EARLY MEMORIES 

reformation is expensive, and even the most confirmed opti- 
mist may therefore regard the gigantic modern plutocracy 
and its lawless ways with some uneasiness. I am not a 
" laudator temporis acti." I shun the role. I do not say 
that the modern plutocrat is worse than the plutocrat of 
other times and other lands, but I say decidedly that he is 
different and that he merits observation. 

On the other hand, this expansion of fortunes and this 
rise in the power of money are not confined in their effects to 
those who seem to have profited most largely by them. We 
can see the same tendency in almost every political issue that 
is raised, for they nearly all turn on giving some class of peo- 
ple more money. The underlying proposition of most of the 
agitation now going forward is to take money by means of 
legislation, through government action, from those who have 
it, either by earning it or by inheritance, and give it to 
those who have not earned it, and especially to those who 
are unable or unwilling to earn it. The old spirit of indi- 
vidualism, which has carried the United States forward to 
its extraordinary material success, is decried as almost purely 
evil, to be curbed if not wholly extinguished. Success of 
any sort, no matter how honest and honorable, especially if 
it brings a pecuniary reward, is not only no longer admired, 
as it used to be, but has become a danger rather than a prize 
for which men should strive. To labor in any way appears 
to be considered as a misfortune in itself, which, if inevitable, 
must be mitigated so far as possible, the principal mitigation 
proposed being an effort to prevent those who work hardest 
and best from gaining any greater reward than those who 
work least and most ineffectively. Special privileges which 
are said to have existed for the benefit of the rich and suc- 
cessful seem to be on the way not to extinction, but to trans- 
ference, which looks like a doubtful solution if we admit, 
what has always been assumed, that special privileges, no 



RETROSPECT AND CONTRAST 213 

matter who enjoys them, are in themselves a bad thing. 
The "carriere ouverte aux talens," which was a watchword 
of the French Revolution, the equality of opportunity so 
unlimited in the United States, which Lincoln lauded as one 
of the glories of his country, were the unquestioned truisms 
of my youth. Now the talents which profit by the open 
career seem to be regarded with suspicion, and as prima- 
facie evidence of wrong-doing. Instead of seeking to as- 
sure equality of opportunity, the theory, whether openly 
expressed or not, appears now to be that without regard to 
merit there must be equality of result, a widely different 
proposition, far more difficult of attainment, and certain to 
end in a kind of injustice that would act as a powerful dis- 
solvent upon the social structure, and even upon civiliza- 
tion itself. 

Mr. Debs, when he accepted his nomination for the 
Presidency, said: 

"Capitalism is rushing blindly to its impending doom. 
All the signs portend the inevitable breakdown of the exist- 
ing order. Deep-seated discontent has seized upon the 
masses. Poverty, high prices, unemployment, child slavery, 
wide-spread misery and haggard want in a land bursting 
with abundance; prostitution and insanity, suicide and 
crime; these in solemn numbers tell the tragic story of cap- 
italism's saturnalia of blood and tears and shame as its 
end draws near." 

Mr. Debs's violence of language is only equalled by his 
looseness of thought and expression. Yet there are large 
masses of people who would not think of supporting Mr. 
Debs but who, none the less, hold more or less vaguely the 
same view that there are many evils in the world, that the 
existing order is to blame for them, and that if we get rid 
of the existing order we shall get rid of the evils too, and enter 
upon a millennium, presided over and guided by Mr. Debs 



214 EARLY MEMORIES 

or some equally judicious, gifted, and disinterested person. 
Mr. Debs calls the "existing order" capitalism, which is a 
name of no exact significance but well calculated to ex- 
cite prejudice. Persons less righteous and more lukewarm 
might describe the "existing order" as a commercial and 
industrial civilization in contradistinction to those in which 
the dominant impulse was religious or military. But the 
name is of no consequence. The "existing order" is the 
only one we have, and when it is swept away the civiliza- 
tion dependent upon it goes with it. Even at the risk of 
denunciation as a reactionary it may fairly be said that this 
is a serious step. The last great civilization which has been 
overthrown went down with the Roman Empire. The evils 
of the empire were obvious enough, but its fall does not 
seem to have been followed by any very immediate improve- 
ment in human conditions, so grave an undertaking was it 
to wreck and replace a great civilization. If it were per- 
fectly clear that poverty, prostitution, suicide, crime, and 
the rest of the dreadful evils which Mr. Debs enumerates 
were due to the "existing order," there could be no doubt 
as to our duty. But it was said nearly two thousand years 
ago by the Saviour of mankind: "The poor always ye have 
with you," and there is reason to believe that "blood and 
tears" and suicide and insanity and crime and prostitution 
have existed under eveiy govermnent and every civilization 
of which there is record. It would be a waste of time to 
suggest to those who think the present order has failed that 
the only way to judge it justly is to determine whether these 
evils and wrongs are greater or less, increasing or diminish- 
ing, under the present system as compared with its prede- 
cessors. In my youth it was believed that these evils were 
constantly being lessened, that the whole movement of 
society was directed toward their extinction so far as ex- 
tinction was possible, and that this was the peculiar mark 



RETROSPECT AND CONTRAST 215 

and glory of our civilization. It is now widely held, and not 
by Mr. Debs and his followers alone, that the fault is in- 
herent in our civilization itself, which is making human 
conditions worse instead of better than they have ever been, 
and that therefore the only way to improvement is by pull- 
ing to pieces and destroying the existing order. This is 
not the place to argue the question if it be arguable from 
the lukewarm point of view. I merely would point out the 
enormous contrast between the sanguine mental attitude 
prevalent in my youth and that, perhaps wiser, but certainly 
darker view, so general to-day. Let me put the thoughts 
and beliefs in which I was brought up, and which per- 
vaded the world in which I grew to manhood, in the 
words of another— better words than I or any one else 
could find: 

' The most notable feature of a disturbance in your city 
last summer was the hanging of some working people by 
other working people. It should never be so. The strongest 
bond of human sympathy, outside of the family relation, 
should be one uniting all working people, of all nations and 
tongues and kindreds. Nor should this lead to a war upon 
property or the owners of property. Property is the fruit 
of labor, property is desirable, is a positive good to the 
world. That some should be rich shows that others may 
become rich, and hence, is just encouragement to industry 
and enterprise. Let not him who is houseless pull down the 
house of another, but let him labor diligently and build one 
for himself, thus by example assuring that his own shall be 
safe from violence when built." 

Any one who spoke in this wise to-day would be de- 
scribed in many quarters as a "reactionary/' probably as a 
"fossilized reactionary," and, in the current, cant language, 
as a friend of "the special interests " and of the "money- 
power." Yet those are the words of Abraham Lincoln in 



216 EARLY MEMORIES 

1864/ speaking to a deputation of a working-man's associa- 
tion — of Abraham Lincoln, a man of the people, a servant of 
the people, to whom he gave himself both in his life and in 
his death. We have been moving away rapidly of late from 
such doctrines as these, and if it be assumed that all move- 
ment is good, merely as movement, without regard to its 
direction, we must have made great advances, if advances 
are measured merely by distance. Whether the progress 
is toward ultimate perfection is another, larger, and some- 
what disputed question. In any event, there can be no 
doubt of the wide departure from the principles set forth 
by Lincoln which we are now urged to make. 

I have no criticisms to offer, still less do I desire to say 
whether the new beliefs are better or worse than the old. 
But there can be no doubt that the difference and the con- 
trast between them exist, and that the faiths of my youth, 
then universally held, are now in many quarters not only 
denounced, but cast aside as only fit for the dust heaps of 
history. 

Social political changes, then, in the United States during 
the past fifty years have been obviously much more marked, 
much more rapid, than in the Old World. They are as ob- 
vious also in the superficial habits of life as in the funda- 
mental principles upon which American democracy and free 
government have hitherto securely rested. The fact that we 
were a young and swiftly growing people made this greater 
rapidity, one might almost say this violence of change, in- 
evitable. Yet it is curious, as I have already remarked, 
how similar the alterations have been along many lines in 
England and in America, if we may trust to such good ob- 
servers as Mr. George Russell and Sir Algernon West. 
They both, for example, comment upon the adoption of 
money and disease as subjects for general, and especially for 

^icolay and Hay's "Abraham Lincoln: A History," vol. IX, p. 61. 



RETROSPECT AND CONTRAST 217 

dinner-table, conversation. I was taught in my youth, and 
very vigorously taught, that it was not good manners to 
discuss physical ailments in general society, and that it was 
the height of vulgarity to refer to money or to what any- 
thing cost, whether in your own case or in that of other peo- 
ple. I now hear surgical operations, physical functions, 
disease and its remedies, freely and fully discussed at dinner 
and on all other occasions by the ingenuous youth of both 
sexes. Money is no longer under a taboo. One's own 
money and that of one's neighbors is largely talked about, 
and the cost of everything or anything recurs as often in 
polite conversation as in a tariff debate. Again I am not 
concerned to decide which is the better fashion, the old or 
the new. I merely note the difference. 

The world of Boston, when I opened my eyes upon it, 
was a very small and simple world as I look back at it now 
in the glare and noise of the twentieth century. There was 
an abundance of gayety, but expenditures were small. 
Eveiybody knew everybody else and all about everybody 
else's family. Most people were related, for in the small 
colonial communities of the eighteenth century the estab- 
lished families had intermarried in a maimer most bewilder- 
ing even to the trained genealogist. Yet the extreme famili- 
arity and ease of intercourse winch I now observe among 
young men and young women entirely unrelated did not then 
exist. However intimate people might be, a certain formal- 
ity of address was thought to be demanded by good manners. 
It was firmly believed that the observance of these conven- 
tions was necessary to maintain the dignity of polite society 
as well as self-respect and respect for others. In that old 
time, which is really not so very old or so veiy distant, but 
which seems to grow more and more unreal as I tiy to re- 
produce it before the surprised stare of the exemplars of 
modern habits and standards, it was an accepted tenet that 



218 EARLY MEMORIES 

children not only ought to honor their father and mother, 
but that they owed them a great debt and were bound to 
respect them, to help them, to sympathize with them, and, 
if need were, to care for them. This theory has now been 
almost reversed. The present view seems to be that par- 
ents owe an unlimited debt to children because they brought 
them into the world, and are bound to defer to them in all 
possible ways, one reason, perhaps, among many more 
potent, for the decline in the size of families. Again I do 
not offer any opinion as to the respective merits of the two 
systems. I will only go so far as to say that my own gen- 
eration, owing to this change, has found itself in the subor- 
dinate and reverential attitude both at the beginning and 
at the end of life, both as child and as parent. 

The rapidity of fortune-making is but one form of the 
increased and increasing swiftness which marks to-day every 
kind of occupation, whether useful or otherwise, as well as 
every function of daily life. To all societies it has brought 
haste in living, and incessant movement seems to be the key- 
note of existence. The leisure class rush uneasily from one 
amusement to another, the busy transact business and push 
forward their affairs with feverish and often breakneck 
speed. That repose which our ancestors so prized and which 
they thought comported best with dignity of life and man- 
ners has departed. Quiet and repose would now be consid- 
ered stupid and dreary, while contentment is looked upon as 
the sign of a poor, unaspiring soul. It might be urged that 
repose of manner and contentment of spirit have not been 
found incompatible with high achievements, with daring 
deeds, or with noble aspirations. But it is to be feared that 
this suggestion would fall now upon deaf ears. The point 
seems, perhaps, not worth pressing, yet the restlessness and 
hurry so prevalent and so beloved to-day have produced 
certain far-reaching results which affect profoundly every 



RETROSPECT AND CONTRAST 219 

activity of life and thought; and thereb}^ the very nature 
of our civilization. I can best express what I mean by 
saying that we are now in such a hurry that form is being 
abandoned, that it has, indeed, been very largely given up. 
This may seem at the first glance an unimportant matter, 
but it is really most serious when it is carefully considered, 
for form has always been one of the essential qualities of all 
the best work which, in the last analysis, has been the justi- 
fication and the fine flower of a high civilization. It is form 
which has preserved for humanity, and given life and savor 
to, all that mankind has cherished most as it has passed 
along its toilsome road, choked with the dust of material 
strife, deafened by the din, and broken and wounded by the 
blows of the struggle for existence and by the shocks of wars 
and revolutions. 

Let me take a familiar instance. It is a commonplace 
to say that the old and graceful art of letter-writing has 
well-nigh vanished. The letters of the seventeenth, eight- 
eenth, and early nineteenth centuries, which it is such a 
delight to read and winch revive for us the life, the loves, 
the hopes, the ambitions, the manners, the scandals, the 
gossip, the thoughts of a bygone day, are no longer written. 
It is not merely that the telegraph, the telephone, and the 
typewriter are the enemies of letter-writing. These might, 
no doubt these inventions must, reduce the number of let- 
ters, but that is no reason why those letters which are 
written should for the most part be dry, condensed, and un- 
graceful, and fall as dead as a withered leaf as soon as they 
have been read. The fact is that it requires time to write 
a good letter, one worthy of preservation for some reason 
other than business or historical purposes. A really good 
letter should have style ; thought should be expended upon 
it, and it should be carefully framed and composed. It 
ought to possess both form and substance; and if it is easily 



220 EARLY MEMORIES 

written, that is the result of training, practice, and care. 
Robert Louis Stevenson, the best letter-writer of our time, 
took infinite pains even with a note. But all these qualities 
consume time, and we have in these days, apparently, no 
time to give to a particular letter or to the training which is 
needful if we would have every letter a good one. We are 
restless and in a hurry, and therefore we abandon any at- 
tempt at form and content ourselves with what will do well 
enough for the moment. Thus it comes to pass that the 
charming art of the letter-writer, with a few lonely excep- 
tions, dies out from among us. 

In sculpture and painting we see the same tendency. 
Because Rodin, a great genius, sees fit in his later work to 
leave parts uncut or merely roughly indicated, a herd of 
imitators who are not geniuses at all rush forward to repro- 
duce the master's trick or oddity or mannerism, which he 
perhaps makes effective, and announce in shrill tones that 
the very art which above all others depends on form is best 
expressed by formlessness. We call the same thing in a 
Greek statue an injury from time or bad treatment. In 
the case of Michael Angelo we say with regret that the 
statue is unfinished, and no one quarrels with the correctness 
of the definition. But the imitators of Rodin, who have 
never proved their mastery of form by noble works like the 
"Age of Bronze" or the "St. John" or "Le Penseur," insist 
that crude marble, amorphous and rough-hewn, is true 
sculpture. The fact is that in the hands of the imitators 
formlessness is only a convenient way of saving time and 
avoiding labor; a method of escaping from the work they 
cannot do and which demands a skill and a talent they 
do not possess. 

There have been "impressionists" here and there who 
have produced beautiful pictures. But the crowd who have 
practised impressionism, still more those who revert to the 



RETROSPECT AND CONTRAST 221 

drawing of childhood or of prehistoric man and call them- 
selves "futurists" or "cubists" or some other meaningless 
name, and sing the praises of their various eccentricities as 
the only true form of art in painting, are ; as a rule, the in- 
capables, dominated by the restlessness and hurry of the 
present day. They proclaim the doctrine that the vague, 
the unfinished, the undrawn, the flat surface, and the child- 
ish lines are the real qualities of true art. This theory, 
loudly asserted, is merely the dust that is raised to cover 
the real cause of all these movements, which is to give to 
those of inferior talent an opportunity and a reason for bad 
work, for work done quickly in order to meet the clamorous 
haste which calls aloud to them on every corner and from 
every housetop. It is not the "call of the wild" which 
invites them, but the call of the newspaper head-line. The 
head-line is what they want, and so form is rejected. Form 
requires time and study and brings no head-line, no inter- 
viewer, no sensation in its train. 

In writing, style, which is the essence of form, is now 
quite generally neglected. The reason is obvious. Style 
requires infinite pains, and taking pains means time. Why 
waste it when the main object is to pour out books or maga- 
zine articles, and swell the vast flood which sweeps under 
the bridge to the delectation of the idle crowd looking over 
the railings, and in a day has rushed on to the ocean of 
oblivion? As one watches the turbid torrent pouring by 
one feels less disposed to jeer at the old Yankee farmer who, 
when asked to subscribe to the village library, replied: "I 
don't care for libraries. Reading rots the mind." 

The writers who with infinite care perfect their style as 
Stevenson did, and who maintain the standards of the great 
models which have come down to us from a long past, de- 
light the judicious and have a crescent and enduring fame. 
But it is to be feared that they are looked upon just now by 



222 EARLY MEMORIES 

the great mass of readers as dull eccentricities, and the 
crowd goes on contentedly absorbing day by day the printed 
word from the most obvious sources which range from the 
vulgarisms and slovenliness of most newspapers to the loose, 
careless, colorless, formless stories and articles which pad 
out, together with advertisements written in the same cheer- 
ful dialect, the pages of many magazines. The world is in 
a hurry, the writer is in a hurry— why waste time over style 
which has no obvious money value? Form and style, be it 
said again, require time, and what we desire are new articles 
and new stories and new sensations so that we may rush 
from one to another. We do not seek for or demand work 
well done, work which rests securely on the slow accretions 
of civilization, and which is inspired by the labors of the 
men of genius who have added to the intellectual posses- 
sions of mankind and then gone their way into the covering 
darkness. 

To those who listen with attentive ears or read with 
careful eyes it is apparent that the decline in outward form, 
in that which strikes the senses, is accompanied by a similar 
and growing indifference to that inner form which is wholly 
intellectual in its appeal. From writing, painting, or carv- 
ing in a formless way to thinking in slovenly fashion is but 
a step. Incoherence of expression is nearly allied to in- 
coherence of thought. Deep thought may lurk under an 
obscure style and has often been hidden in that way, but 
an obscure style does not of itself mean depth of thought, 
although some people appear to think so. An involved, 
diffuse style frequently conceals nothing but emptiness and 
confusion. Clearness and simplicity are entirely compatible 
with profound and original thought, but to those who are 
neither profound nor original, simplicity and clearness are 
impossible, because they relentlessly expose the void within. 
Under cover of rambling and chaotic sentences, vague brush 



RETROSPECT AND CONTRAST 223 

strokes, or shapeless marble, poverty of ideas may claim, if 
it does not really produce, an effect. It may lead people to 
mistake eccentricity for originality. It may startle for the 
moment, and that seems the key-note of much modern work, 
which imperatively recalls the fat boy in "Pickwick" when 
he frightens old Mrs. Wardle by saying to her: "I want 
to make your flesh creep." But when we tear aside the 
veil the reality is disclosed, and we find only too often that 
the argument is as formless as the sentences in which it is 
dressed, the inner thought as meaningless and amorphous 
as its shapeless wrappings. How seldom, comparatively 
speaking, do we find in speech or book the argument or 
thesis in proper form, rising from premise to conclusion in 
ordered sequence. Disjecta membra are flung together, but 
the thought as a whole is broken and disconnected. To 
think clearly and connectedly, to know how to begin at the 
beginning and thence carry the mind of the reader or hearer 
smoothly on to the inevitable conclusion, is a great art, rare 
in its perfection, but in a reasonable degree not uncommon 
in the past. Now, however, it is becoming more and more 
infrequent, for such thinking demands painful effort, much 
training, and much time. Is the modern rapidity destined 
to prove altogether fatal to connected thinking and to well- 
ordered argument? We are in a great hurry, we are ter- 
ribly afraid of being bored, the philosophy of life seems to 
be to do what we wish to do at the moment, provided that 
we know what our wishes and desires are. We seem to be 
far removed from the days when a great poet could put the 
aspiration of a generation into the lines: 

"When duty whispers low, You must! 
The youth replies, I can." 

I do not say that the old attitude was the best. Perhaps 
the modern theory is the better of the two. It is not for 



224 EARLY MEMORIES 

me to decide. I merely note the striking change. Hitherto 
in the history of mankind the decline of a civilization, the 
break-up of a great social and political system, the sinking 
into ruin of a nation or an empire, were revealed in litera- 
ture and art by the devotion to mere outward form, to 
over refinement, to tricks of expression, with nothing behind 
them. At such periods form became everything, and under 
the elaborate forms no substance was to be found. When 
the final catastrophe came and dexterity of manufacture 
vanished there was nothing left. Formlessness once more, 
as at the beginning, reigned in expression, and there was 
no thought to express. We can see this process in the lat- 
ter days of Rome's empire, in the condition of Italy after 
the Reformation there had failed and the glories of the Re- 
naissance had faded. It was from these conditions that men 
worked upward, rough in form at first but with vigor of 
thought struggling for expression. They gradually recov- 
ered the standard of a great past and once more brought 
literature and the arts to the highest levels of both form and 
substance. We do not show the symptom of decay almost 
infallible in its prophecy and which is unmistakable, when 
form is everything and substance nothing. Our situation 
is quite different. The tendency now is to abandon outer 
form and then to be content with formlessness in thought, 
because we are too hurried to spend time in securing the 
one or avoiding the other. Are we going to bring out of a 
chaos created by ourselves new forms and a new order, or 
are we deliberately returning to the twilight which precedes 
the dawn, determined to live in that dim zone because we 
have not time to spare for the patient labors, for the care- 
ful establishment of standards by which, and by which alone, 
civilization, carrying arts and letters and thought in its 
train, has hitherto emerged after many conflicts from the 
bondage of barbarism? 



CHAPTER X 

EUROPE AGAIN: 1871-1872 

I shall not give any account of our journey in Europe, 
for this is not a book of travels, and our wanderings were 
along much-trodden paths and among familiar places. 
When my mother went abroad with her father and mother 
in 1837 they, of course, posted through Europe in their own 
carriage and followed the well-known lines: France, the 
Rhine, Switzerland, Italy, and a brief visit to the German 
capitals, winding up before their return with a journey 
through England and Scotland. When my mother went 
again to Europe in 1866, taking my sister and me with her, 
although railroads in the interval had changed the entire 
character of travelling, she very naturally wished to revisit 
the places which had charmed her in girlhood and to renew 
the memories of that happy time. When, again, four years 
later, I went independently, I wished that my wife and her 
sister should see what I had seen before. So we made our 
way to London after landing at Southampton, saw the 
usual sights and renewed our friendship with the Russell 
Sturgises, who, as always, were unwearied in their kindness 
and hospitality. Mount Felix, alas, was a thing of the past, 
and they were living in Carlton House Terrace, but they 
themselves were unchanged, and we had many pleasant 
hours with them. We saw sights in abundance, but few 
people, for we were not of an age to crave society where 
everything about us was so new and strange and interesting 

225 



226 EARLY MEMORIES 

to the eager eyes of youth. Nevertheless, under maternal 
directions, we went one afternoon to call upon Mrs. Story, 
who was staying with Mrs. Benson, then living in a very 
charming house in the Kensington region. The visit is 
made memorable to me by the fact that we found other 
callers already there, Mrs. Leslie Stephen and her sister 
Miss Thackeray. We were quite unknown, very shy I think, 
and we certainly felt most keenly our youthful insignificance 
in a strange house, in a foreign land, but it interested me 
profoundly to know that I was actually face to face with 
Thackeray's daughters. I recall nothing that they said, 
but I remember well just how they looked; and their pres- 
ence seemed to bring me very near to their father, whose 
books I had read while I was in college and for whom, both 
as writer and man, I had acquired an intense admiration. 

From London we crossed to the Continent, went up the 
Rhine, and so on to Munich, whence we made our way to 
the hills in order to see the Passion play at Oberammergau. 
We stayed with an old white-bearded peasant who took the 
part of one of the high priests, and the whole experience was 
most interesting. The play was then given only once in 
ten years — fashion had but just begun to gather round it 
and it had not yet become sophisticated and conscious. 
The old simplicity of feeling and intention was still present, 
and one felt strongly the atmosphere of faith and the devo- 
tion of the villagers. It was an extraordinary performance : 
most solemn, most impressive, with a great deal of fine acting 
and a remarkable sense of scenic and artistic effect. In 
that quiet countiy the old faith still lingered unimpaired, 
and one felt distinctly the "tender grace of a day that was 
dead," stripped of all the evils which had surrounded it 
when the system of which it was a part was still powerful 
and flourishing. From the hills of Bavaria we journeyed 
into Switzerland, and as the summer waned, at the begin- 



EUROPE AGAIN: 1871-1872 227 

ning of September, we betook ourselves to Paris. Although 
I have no intention, as I have said, of rehearsing our sight- 
seeing and our little adventures, yet I must pause for a 
moment as the evening of our arrival at Paris comes back 
to me. When I had last seen the most beautiful of mod- 
ern cities, the empire was in its glory. Now the empire 
had vanished and war and rebellion had swept across the 
scene, leaving ruin and desolation in their track. Scarcely 
three months had elapsed since the Versailles troops had 
made themselves masters of the city after a week of savage 
street fighting. Every effort had been put forth to repair 
the well-nigh incalculable damage inflicted by the siege and 
by the Commune, but it was impossible to progress far in 
two months. The Tuileries was a wreck and the Hotel de 
Ville a heap of untouched ruins. The column of the Place 
Vendome was down; many streets were still torn up; even 
the repaving of the Rue de Rivoli was not completed. In 
other streets the remnants of barricades still lingered, and 
at all the principal corners and along the lines of the fight- 
ing were remnants of half-burned houses, while on eveiy 
side one saw the mark of the rifle-ball, the shell, and the 
obus. The Bois de Boulogne was a treeless plain and the 
palace of Saint-Cloud had perished. The signs of mourn- 
ing, both national and personal, were painfully visible. 

One morning I saw a communard arrested in the Champs 
Elysees and carried off, screaming, cursing, and fighting, 
by four sergents de ville, who handled their prisoner with 
little mercy, for they gave but short shrift in those days to 
any one who was even suspected of connection with the 
Commune. Doctor Campbell, a leading physician of Paris, 
whom I came to know well in the following spring, told me 
of two little incidents which illustrate the condition of 
public opinion in regard to the members of the Commune 
better than volumes of description. Just after the entry of 



228 EARLY MEMORIES 

the troops he was passing up the Rue Royale, when he saw 
an officer and two or three soldiers dragging along a prisoner 
whom they had apparently taken red-handed at one of the 
barricades. A crowd had gathered on the sidewalk, and as 
the prisoner came by a woman cried out: "Achevez le!" 
The officer looked around, drew his sword, gave the prisoner 
a sweeping blow across the back of his neck, severing the 
spine, and the soldiers pushed the body into the gutter and 
marched on. A little later, the upper part of the city hav- 
ing been cleared, Doctor Campbell went out to the ceme- 
tery of Montmartre to see if his mother's tomb had been 
injured by the firing. He found the tomb untouched, but 
as he passed around behind it he came upon over three 
hundred bodies stretched out on the slope side by side, 
lying in windrows "as the mower rakes the hay." The 
soldiers had taken these communists out there, stood them 
up in a row, and shot them down. It was a savage time; 
much worse, I imagine, than any one not actually present 
ever realized. 

When I returned to Paris the following spring an auction 
sale of some of the effects of the imperial household took 
place in an upper room of the Louvre. It seemed a suitably 
mean ending for a government which, under all its glitter, 
was not only sordid but a sham. My one regret is that I 
was not wise enough to buy more than I did, for the things 
sold, chiefly fine china, went absurdly cheap, and such oppor- 
tunities arising from the fall of empires do not occur often 
in a lifetime. 

But in that September of 1871 the contrast between what 
I remembered and what I saw was tragic in its intensity, 
and made a deep impression upon me, young and careless as 
I then was. It was not merely the heaps of ruins and the 
destruction of monuments and noble buildings which weighed 
one down, but the atmosphere seemed still heavy with the 



EUROPE AGAIN: 1871-1872 229 

terrible storm which had torn its way over Paris. Even 
the sufferings of the siege and the humiliations of the con- 
queror's presence seemed effaced for the moment by the 
horrors of the Commune. Paris in the hands of the mob 
had tried once again to control France as she had done so 
often before. This time France declined to be controlled. 
France had marched on Paris, taken it, put down the revo- 
lution, and restored order. It was said that thirty thousand 
people had been killed in the fighting which resulted in the 
capture of the capital. It was a fearful slaughter, but it 
had its effect and was not without its compensation. Paris 
has not attempted since then to take possession of the gov- 
ernment and the country. As Cotton Mather observed 
after the extermination of the Pequots: "And the land 
rested for forty years." 

After I had written down from memory the impressions 
made upon me by Paris in 1871, I came across those re- 
corded at the moment. Contemporary description gives 
some details which memory had let slip, but the general 
impression has remained curiously unchanged after forty 
years, and shows how sharp and vivid that impression was. 
The letter was written on September 23, 1871, and runs 
as follows: 

There is one subject, however, which interests me very much 
and which would interest you, too, in a like manner; I mean the 
country and the city where we now are, the recent theatre of such 
vast events in the history of the world. When we first entered 
France everything seemed unchanged. There was no general 
gloom that we could perceive, and the damages to bridges and 
houses were being quickly effaced. The country, as you know, is 
very fertile and looked rich and smiling with its load of grapes. 
In fact, we were beginning to feel that they had not had such a 
very hard time after all. But our feelings soon changed. As 
the train stopped at Dijon, a large town half-way between the 
frontier and Paris, as you are aware, the first sight that met our 



230 EARLY MEMORIES 

eyes was a company of Prussian soldiers, bronzed men who had 
been fighting hard, and their dusty, dark uniforms and glittering 
helmets presented a strange appearance although a most noble 
one. All at once the terrible fact seemed to burst full on me, 
and most impressively. Here was a troop of foreigners from the 
cold North, speaking another language, standing on French soil, 
and detailed to the station in order to search every train for con- 
cealed arms or men. And most thoroughly was it done by two 
stout fellows. It was war, terrible war in very fact, with the con- 
querors showing their power by searching a French train on French 
soil, and you can believe that there was no lack of sullen, gloomy 
Frenchmen there. But impressive as all this was to us, it is noth- 
ing to Paris. The first experience was the harsh evidence of hard, 
destructive war, but of a manly, stand-up fight between two 
brave nations. But Paris looks as if it had been the scene of a 
savage, barbarian massacre. The whole mournful tale is easily 
read in a few glances at the things around us. In the list of sights 
is now "Les Ruines de Paris"; Paris, the handsomest city of the 
civilized world, now makes money by showing her ruins. On 
every side are awful ruins — from my window, as I write (we were 
in the Hotel Meurice), I can see the total wreck of the Tuileries 
and farther on is the like utter ruin of the Hotel de Ville. But 
besides the ruins of her beautiful public buildings, whole blocks 
are gone, and at every turn in the street the remnants of stately 
houses meet your eyes. Whole corners are shot away, and almost 
every house bears the rents of bullets or the jagged seams of fresh 
cement, showing where the scars are but just healed. It is folly 
to say Paris is but little changed, as many of our people have said; 
it is terribly changed; not only the buildings are in ruins, but the 
people seem to be. The shops are filled with inflammatory books 
and pictures crammed with lies about the Prussians, and every- 
body seems ill at ease and restless. As far as papers and appear- 
ances tell — and straws show the wind, especially large straws like 
popular books, papers, and pictures — it seems to me that the 
French are worse than ever, and that all they cherish is not the 
prosperity of their country but a wild desire for revenge and mili- 
tary glory, the bane and poison of the life of France. My friend 
Munroe told me to-day, what I had inferred, that the whole fabric 
of society seemed to him to be perfectly dissolved and demorali- 
zation to be very general. Time may cure it all, but the signs 



EUROPE AGAIN: 1871-1872 231 

of the time are not favorable, to say the least. Another change, 
and one I do not like to see, is the fancy for words, mere words. 
For instance, all public buildings have printed on them, in large, 
staring letters: 

" Republique Francaise. 
llberte, egalite, fraternite." 

At every turn this meets one, and it must afford them the greatest 
satisfaction from the number of times in all places it is written 
up, with much stuff like it. This is a decidedly pessimistic view, 
I know, and very extreme, as is natural to a young man, of course, 
but I cannot help feeling that the French nation, great as it has 
been and can be, is wanting in the steadiness and strength which 
make a nation, and no amount of terrible teaching seems to supply 
those qualities. 

The reflections in this letter are superficial enough; the 
prejudice against France owing to her attitude during our 
Civil War, then still so near, is obvious; and, after the 
fashion of the young, no allowances are made. Yet the 
keenness of the impression of a great country and a noble 
city in the hour of their desolation remains, and I know now 
what I did not understand then, that it was all due to the 
miserable imperial government and not to the French peo- 
ple, and that the overwhelming victory of Germany was 
anything but an unmixed curse. 

From Paris we went to Germany, stopping at Cassel 
and visiting Wilhelmshohe, where Napoleon III had been 
held a prisoner, and also the Rembrandts in the galleries, 
much better w 7 orth seeing than the retreat of the fallen Em- 
peror, for they are a very fine and comparatively little- 
known collection. Thence we went to Dresden, Berlin, and 
Vienna, on to Venice and the cities of northern Italy, and 
so southward to Rome, where we passed most of the winter. 
Here we renewed our inherited friendship with the Storys, 
who were, as always, most kind, and Mr. Story as clever, 



232 EARLY MEMORIES 

amusing, and charming as ever. But that winter in Rome 
is now chiefly memorable to me on account of an influence 
which then came into my life, affected me much, and passed 
away from me after a few brief months. That influence 
emanated from a character and an intelligence which, most 
untimely lost, have always seemed to me so unusual as to 
deserve at least the slight commemoration of a friend's 
recollection. 

Among my classmates at Harvard was a man named 
Michael Henry Simpson. He was a Bostonian born and 
bred, but it so happened that I had never seen him until 
we met at Cambridge. His father was a rich manufacturer 
and well known in the business world. Simpson stood high 
in scholarship from the beginning, but two years passed 
before the other boys began to find out that he was also a 
"good fellow"; two things which in youthful philosophy 
are apt to be regarded as well-nigh incompatible. It may 
be said in behalf of the boyish philosophy that it has in it 
an element of truth. The hard students and first scholars, 
the "digs," as we used to call them, do not as a rule shine 
in the lighter side of life. The combination of the success- 
ful student, the pleasant companion, and the good fellow is 
not very common, but Simpson was one of these exceptional 
men and united all these qualities. In time he was discov- 
ered, became one of the most popular men in the class, was 
elected to the societies, and caused us all to wonder at the 
fact that we had not found him out before. I came to know 
him well in the theatricals of the Hasty Pudding Society, 
where we acted and managed together, and in Henry Adams's 
course in mediaeval history, which appealed strongly to 
Simpson as it did to me. He also crossed the ocean to Eu- 
rope soon after my departure from the United States, and 
we corresponded and discussed our experiences in foreign 
lands with youthful energy. I was veiy fond of pictures 



EUROPE AGAIN: 1871-1872 233 

and statues, and knowing little about them I set myself to 
learn ; if it were possible, something in regard to them and 
of the history of art as well, by studying the galleries and 
reading all the books I could procure which related to art 
or to architecture, for which I also entertained a keen, if 
ignorant, admiration. In these eccentricities I had few 
sympathizing friends of my own age, and I was charmed to 
discover that Simpson had precisely the same weaknesses. 
I also liked to see sights, if only to make sure on Doctor 
Johnson's principle that I did not care to see them again, and 
here, too, I found that Simpson, differing from our other 
young friends, who frankly found sight-seeing a bore, was 
at one with me. So when we met in Rome no more con- 
genial pair of companions could have been imagined. We 
saw everything in Rome and its neighborhood, and all with 
a diligent minuteness which left traces never to be effaced. 
We read Suetonius together and then pored over the busts 
of the Caesars in the Capitoline Museum. We wandered 
over the Campagna and among the ruins of Ostia and of 
Hadrian's Villa; then we went together to Naples and to 
Psestum. It was a delightful winter, a happy time, a charm- 
ing companionship ; but in such close association we talked 
of many things besides pictures and statues, ruins, archi- 
tecture, and history. We became very intimate, and, in 
the blessed fashion of youth, opened our hearts to each 
other and talked of ourselves without the dreadful and well- 
founded suspicion, which is brought by advancing years, 
that such conversation with another man is not, as a rule, 
conversation at all, but something to be shunned as the 
mark of the egotist, most unbearable of bores to his fellow 
beings. In this way I came in contact for the first time 
with a young man of my own age who had done some think- 
ing for himself upon various matters of importance. This 
was an exercise in which up to that time I had never in- 



234 EARLY MEMORIES 

dulged. I was a Gallio and had been very happy and con- 
tented in that careless condition. I had taken the world 
as it came and had found it on the whole a very pleasant 
world. I had been brought up in a family holding the lib- 
eral tenets of Unitarianism, and about those tenets I had 
never troubled myself. But although the old doctrines of 
the church of my ancestors had been abandoned, the hand 
of the Puritan was still felt even among the Unitarians of 
Boston in such matters as churchgoing and Sunday observ- 
ance. I regarded both these fixed habits as necessary in- 
terferences with the pleasures of life, but accepted them as 
part of the established order to be shirked when possible 
and dropped when I should become my own master. As to 
what I should do with my life or in my life, I had given to 
that somewhat important subject — important, I mean, so 
far as I was concerned — no attention at all. I was not 
pressed by need of money. I had everything I desired, and 
there was nothing to goad me on to think about the future. 
When I was in college I read Macaulay and conceived for 
him an intense admiration; his force, his rhetoric, his sure 
confidence in his own judgment, his simplicity of thought, 
all strike a boy very vividly. He did not seem to me a 
great or in the true sense a real poet, even then, and so, 
quite unconsciously, I passed successfully Matthew Arnold's 
primary test of poetical judgment; but I profoundly admired 
Macaulay 's prose writings and felt that his career, which com- 
bined that of the public man and of the man of letters, was 
the most enviable which could be imagined. Later, when 
I came to Europe, when I read more and began to realize 
history and art, I also began to cherish some vague desires 
for a literary life. But beyond these nebulous fancies I had 
not progressed. Then I became intimate with Simpson. 
In him I found a man brought up in the same town as my- 
self, who had thought much upon all these things and had 



EUROPE AGAIN: 1871-1872 235 

reached some very definite conclusions, starting from prem- 
ises to which I was wholly a stranger. His family were 
strict Congregationalists of the old New England type, de- 
voted not only to the austere forms but to the rigid doc- 
trines of the Puritans. They were of the people who locally 
were called "Orthodox," a term well understood in the days 
of the Unitarian schism. In such an atmosphere the con- 
ception of a man's duties in life had sunk deep into the 
boy's mind. He had joined the church, taught in the Sun- 
day-school, and accepted the stern creed of Calvin. Then 
he began to think about religion and man's place in the 
universe. The old creed dropped away, and so he went on 
until he found that he could no longer accept the dogmas in 
which he had been bred, and was content to call himself an 
agnostic. All this he had kept to himself, for he was loath 
to hurt or wound those whom he loved unless it became 
absolutely necessary, and he told me that he had never 
before confided to any one the bitterness of the struggle 
through which he had passed or the conclusions he had 
reached. He was as far removed as possible from a prig; 
he seemed to the world simply an exceptionally clever, lively 
young man of unusual intelligence, full of fun and humor 
and of the joy of life. His serious side he kept to himself. 
But although the dogmas had vanished and the unques- 
tioning belief in the Bible legends had crumbled away before 
a clear, uncompromising reason and a finely honest mind, 
the inborn and strongly inculcated sense of duty remained. 
He saw neither intelligence nor pleasure in an idle, self- 
indulgent life. He felt very deeply that there were certain 
duties which must be fulfilled, and that the more fortunate 
a man was in his circumstances and conditions the heavier 
the responsibility which rested upon him. He had no de- 
sire for more money and no love for business. He wished 
to give his life to literature and public service. But he 



236 EARLY MEMORIES 

felt also that he owed a great deal to his father, and to 
gratify him he intended to enter at once into business and 
to aid in carrying on the important industry which was part 
of his inheritance. He meant to keep on with his reading 
and studies, in the hope that some day he might be able to 
turn to literature, as even then he longed to do. But he 
also felt that whether his work was in literature or in busi- 
ness he owed a duty to his country, and that every Ameri- 
can, especially every educated American, ought to take part 
in politics and make himself effectively useful. No thought 
of public office was in his mind, for the business claimed him, 
but he proposed to make himself felt in the work of politics 
and to exercise influence and power for what he believed to 
be right and in behalf of the Republican party, in which he 
had been bred and in the principles of which he had entire 
faith. 

I have been thus minute in describing the thoughts and 
opinions of Simpson, not merely because he was a lovable 
man and a dear friend, but because his experience, his mental 
conflicts, and his conclusions, which are all rare at that age, 
made a profound impression upon me and greatly affected 
my life at a moment when I was drifting vaguely and was 
very susceptible to outside influences. All this considera- 
tion given to serious things, all this thought about man's 
place in the universe, about the undiscovered future and 
the meaning and uses of life, coming from a man, a boy 
really, of my own age, were to me at once very strange and 
very impressive. Hitherto, like Mrs. Quickly in her con- 
solation to Falstaff, "I had hoped there was no need to 
trouble myself with any such thoughts yet." And now 
here by my side was a man of my own age who had troubled 
himself much with these thoughts and who had faced them 
and come to certain conclusions thereon. It made a deep 
and lasting impression upon me; I, too, began to think and 



EUROPE AGAIN: 1871-1872 237 

try to reach conclusions, and to long to do something with 
my opportunities. A life of unoccupied leisure no longer 
attracted me. 

So the pleasant winter wore away and we left Simpson 
in Rome and took our way to Paris. Soon after our arrival 
I had a long letter from him, written in Florence. We were 
planning a little journey to Spain later in the spring. Then 
I heard that he was ill. It was malignant typhoid, and in a 
few days news came of his death. The blow fell heavily. 
He had become so much to me that I could hardly realize 
that I should see him no more. His death left a gap in my 
life which after all these years has still remained unfilled. 

From Paris we went to Belgium and then to Holland. 
We found the Motleys established at The Hague and we 
saw much of them. I remember particularly one evening 
when we dined with them, only the family and ourselves. 
We were just in the longest days of the year, and although 
we dined late it was still daylight. I can see the room now 
as we sat there after dinner in the gathering twilight and 
listened to Mr. Motley as he talked, with the eloquent en- 
ergy of which he was so capable, about the treatment he 
had received at the hands of the Grant administration. He 
had turned for relief to his own work and had come to Hol- 
land to complete his life of John of Barneveld. It was 
peculiarly interesting to hear him describe the great Dutch 
statesman there in The Hague among the veiy scenes in 
which he had won his triumphs and gone to his death. 

After our little journey through the Low Countries we 
crossed over to England, and I, with some friends, made a 
tour through England to see the cathedral towns, and then 
through Scotland, which, owing to my love for Scott and 
the Waverley novels, was to me most interesting and at the 
same time seemed strangely familiar, so deeply were all the 
scenes imprinted on my mind by what I had read. In 



238 EARLY MEMORIES 

August we sailed for home, and reached Boston safely to- 
ward the end of the month. 

After Simpson's death I turned for advice and help as 
to my future to Henry Adams, to whom I already owed so 
much for the first glimmering of real education that I had 
ever received. He replied at once with a kindness and an 
interest which I shall never forget, and I give his letter here 
because it not only encouraged me, but had upon me at 
that turning-point of my life a profound effect. 

Cambridge, 2 June, 1872. 

MY DEAR LODGE — 

Your letter of May 6 arrived safely a few days since and gave 
me the pleasant sensation of thinking that I may after all have 
done some good at college; if you ever try it, you will know how 
very doubtful a teacher feels of his own success and how much a 
bit of encouragement does for him. Poor Simpson's death, too, 
seemed utterly disheartening. What is the use of training up 
the best human material only to die at the start! 

There is only one way to look at life and that is the practical 
way. Keep clear of mere sentiment whenever you have to de- 
cide a practical question. Sentiment is very attractive and I 
like it as well as most people, but nothing in the way of action is 
worth much which is not practically sound. 

The question is whether the historico-literary line is practically 
worth following; not whether it will amuse or improve you. 
Can you make it pay, either in money, reputation, or any other 
solid value? 

Now if you will think for a moment of the most respectable 
and respected products of our town of Boston, I think you will 
see at once that this profession does pay. No one has done better 
and won more in any business or pursuit than has been acquired 
by men like Prescott, Motley, Frank Parkman, Bancroft, and so 
on in historical writing; none of them men of extraordinary gifts, 
or who would have been likely to do very much in the world if 
they had chosen differently. What they did can be done by others. 

Further there is a great opening here at this time. Boston is 
running dry of literary authorities. Any one who has the ability 



EUROPE AGAIN: 1871-1872 239 

can enthrone himself here as a species of literary lion with ease, 
for there is no rival to contest the throne. With it comes social 
dignity, European reputation and a foreign mission to close. 

To do it requires patient study, long labor and perseverance 
that knows no limit. The Germans have these qualities beyond 
all other races. Learn to appreciate and to use the German his- 
torical method and your style can be elaborated at leisure. I 
should think you could do this here. 

I shall be in London, I hope, on the 1st of August, to be heard 
of at Barings. If we are there together we will have a dinner 
and talk it over. Remember me to your wife. 

Yrs truly, 

Henry Adams. 

Encouraged by this letter, I set to work when I reached 
home and was fairly established in Boston. I had no definite 
plan; no taste, no aptitude, no mastering passion beckoned 
me into any particular path. I merely desired to read his- 
tory and to write, if I could. So I turned to the early law 
of the Germanic tribes, toward which my studies in medi- 
aeval history had led me, as the foundation of the legal and 
political history of the English-speaking people. I doubt if 
I could have selected a drier subject. I certainly could not 
have found drier reading than the latest and most authori- 
tative German writers of that day upon this subject, Sohm, 
Von Maurer, and the rest, at whose books I toiled faith- 
fully for some weary months. The work was not inspirit- 
ing, it was in fact inexpressibly dreary, and I passed a de- 
pressing winter so far as my own labors were concerned. 
I seemed to be going nowhere and to be achieving nothing. 
I led a solitary life, except for my immediate family, and 
I found it a doleful business struggling with the laws and 
customs of the Germanic tribes, without any prospect, so 
far as I could see, of either reward or result. I am inclined 
to think now that the discipline of forcing myself to work, 
when I did not need to work at all, was of real value in 



240 EARLY MEMORIES 

giving me control of such faculties as I possessed, and in 
enabling me to apply my mind to any subject which it was 
necessary for me to understand, no matter how little I cared 
for the subject itself. 

As winter was fading a visit to Norfolk, Virginia, where 
Admiral Davis was living as Commandant of the Navy Yard, 
made a most helpful break. The climate was a pleasant 
change from Boston, and there was opportunity for exer- 
cise by rowing on the river and taking long walks. I threw 
aside German authors and Germanic law, and read all the 
principal Elizabethan dramatists, which was a pure delight. 
I returned to Boston sufficiently refreshed to go on with 
my apparently pointless studies, and so the spring wore 
away and summer came, and Nahant. 

Then one day Henry Adams, who had recently returned 
from Europe, appeared at luncheon; and afterwards, as I 
was walking down with him to take the wagon for Lynn, he 
told me that he had accepted the editorship of the North 
American Review and wished me to be his assistant editor. 
I have had since that summer morning in 1873 my share of 
rewards and honors, more, very likely, than I have deserved; 
but nothing has ever come to me which gave me such joy 
as that offer from Hemy Adams. I know the exact spot on 
the road where he made the announcement to me, and I can 
see the whole familiar scene as it looked upon that eventful 
day. I came home, my heart swelling with pride and with 
a feeling of intense relief, for it seemed to me that the dark- 
ness in which I had been groping had suddenly lifted and 
that at last I could see my way to doing something. The 
North American Review, then a quarterly, old, famous, and 
respected, appeared to me, who had always looked at its 
pages with distant awe, one of the most important publica- 
tions in the world. To be connected with it, to have a 
chance to write for it, was a dazzling prospect which I had 



EUROPE AGAIN: 1871-1872 241 

never dreamed would open to me except possibly after long 
years. Now I was to be one of its editors. I trod on air 
as I walked, and the whole world was changed. 

In tracing my own very unimportant and veiy quiet 
life during the first year after my return from Europe, I 
have not paused to mention one really terrible event of 
which I was a most unwilling spectator, and which naturally 
made upon me a very profound impression. Early in No- 
vember, 1872, soon after our return from Nahant, the great 
Boston fire occurred. I heard the first alarm as I was read- 
ing in the library and thought nothing of it. Then came the 
general alarm and I went out. I had always felt the genial 
interest and more or less active pleasure in fires which is 
common to healthy boys, and with this habitual and slightly 
excited feeling I went forth that evening. I have never 
regarded any fire in a city since then with anything but in- 
tense anxiety and real alarm. It was an experience which 
no one could ever forget, and the frightful devastation of 
that night was something which could never be obliterated 
from the memories of those who saw it. After leaving my 
house I crossed the Common and walked down Summer 
Street. The fire had then made but little progress, compara- 
tively speaking, and was raging in the lower part of the 
street just in the neighborhood where I was born. I went 
from point to point and watched the fire spread, which it did 
with terrifying rapidity. I saw tall buildings catch in their 
roofs like huge matches and blaze up, I saw walls falling 
and stone crumbling in the heat, and in a short time I real- 
ized that the fire was far beyond control. I was ready and 
eager to do anything I could, and there were plenty of will- 
ing volunteers, but unluckily there was nothing that vol- 
unteers could do except to help here and there in saving the 
contents of threatened buildings. Long after midnight I 
went home and reported what was happening. I could not 



242 EARLY MEMORIES 

sleep and sat at an upper window for a little while watching 
the sea of flames rolling by in great billows to the eastward. 
I found it impossible to stay where I was even though I was 
useless elsewhere. So again I went out and again made my 
way down Summer Street. When the tardy dawn came at 
last it showed the ruin that had been wrought. I worked 
my way round to State Street and to the office of Lee, 
Higginson & Co., where the safety vaults were situated. 
Those in charge wisely refused, as I remember, to allow 
any one to enter the vaults or to remove anything. From 
that point I watched the final struggle with the fire. We 
could see the flames, only one block away, through the old 
Chamber of Commerce building opposite, and it looked then 
as if State Street must go. But the area of the fire had been 
gradually narrowed and it had reached its limit. There, 
just before it touched State Street, it was stayed. The blow 
to the city was a heavy one, but it was met with a fine cour- 
age and had no lasting effect. Fortunately the pathway of 
the fire had not lain through a residence quarter. At the 
point of origin some tenements and houses of the poorer 
class had been destroyed, and a few more went in the Fort 
Hill region, but all the rest of the space swept by the flames 
was covered with business blocks, warehouses, office build- 
ings, and the like. Nevertheless many poor people were 
rendered homeless and had lost their all on the edge of 
winter. An ample fund for food, clothing, and rent was 
raised, and in the distribution I took part, finding at last 
for the time being something useful to do. The supply of 
all these necessaries was so ample that I think a good many 
persons found themselves much better off and more warmly 
clothed than before the fire. But none the less I then gained 
a knowledge of how a part of the world lives which I had 
never possessed before, and which it did me much good to 
learn. The distribution of aid to sufferers by the fire led 



EUROPE AGAIN: 1871-1872 243 

me to undertake district visiting for the Provident Associa- 
tion, which I carried on for two years, and there, in the 
houses and rooms of the very poorest people, I was taught 
many lessons which I hope have not been wholly unfruitful. 



CHAPTER XI 
STARTING IN LIFE: 1873-1880 

After the great good fortune which came to me by my 
selection for the assistant editorship of the North American 
Review, I had no further reason to complain of lack of em- 
ployment. My depression departed. I no longer felt that 
I was laboring in an objectless, purposeless fashion. In 
fact, I am rather surprised as I look back at the many inter- 
ests which sprang up about me and at the amount of work 
which, for better or worse, I managed to do. But work, 
after all, is the best of friends. I believe that it is one secret 
of health. Without it one can never enjoy either leisure or 
a vacation, and work, free from anxiety, is always a tonic, 
and in some of the darkest hours an anodyne. I do not be- 
lieve that it ever did any one anything but good, provided 
that a man takes plenty of exercise, which I have always 
done, riding at all seasons, hunting in the autumn, and in 
summer living in or on the water, and always varying my 
amusements out-of-doors by much walking and by the sim- 
ple labor of chopping and sawing wood. 

My duties on the North American Review began at once. 
I read manuscripts and proof and aided Mr. Adams in every 
way in preparing each number for the press. I learned much 
in this manner from my chief's instruction as to methods 
of criticism and also as to style. Very early in my appren- 
ticeship I remember his handing to me an article by an 
eminent local historian and antiquary, and saying: "We 

244 



STARTING IN LIFE: 1873-1880 245 

shall print this article, of course, but I wish you to go over 
it and strike out all superfluous words, and especially all 
needless adjectives." I faithfully performed my task, and 
found to my surprise when I had finished that, without chang- 
ing or cutting down the article, I had shortened it by several 
pages. It was a valuable lesson. At the same time I re- 
ceived much more important and much more direct instruc- 
tion than this. Like most beginners I was prone to write 
long and involved sentences. Mr. Adams insisted that the 
very first step was to learn to write clearly, in short and 
simple sentences, and that when that difficulty had been 
mastered the greater and finer art of ornament and of choos- 
ing words wherein one's ideal is never attained, would fol- 
low. He sent me to Swift to study simplicity of style as 
well as force and energy of expression, because these quali- 
ties are exhibited in the highest degree by that great master 
of English prose. He encouraged me to write critical no- 
tices for the Review, but was very severe when it came to 
the question of acceptance. My first article, about a page 
in length, which attained the honor of publication was a 
critical notice of Baxmann's "History of the Popes." I re- 
wrote it eight times before it passed muster. It looks very 
dry and abrupt to me now, but I can see that it was at least 
clear, and that no one could fail to understand the sentences 
or what I was trying to say. I went on writing critical 
notices, some quite elaborate and involving much work, but 
three years elapsed before I rose to the dignity of a leading 
article. The appearance of my essay upon Alexander Ham- 
ilton in 1876 was another epoch in my life, and I wish I 
could again feel about anything the glow of pride which 
filled my being when the number containing it appeared. 

But the North American Review was not my only occu- 
pation. I entered the Harvard Law School in 1872, not 
with any intention of becoming a practising lawyer, but 



246 EARLY MEMORIES 

partly because I was at a loss what to do, and partly because 
I felt it would be of value to me as a form of education. In 
this I was not disappointed. I became convinced then, and 
have ever since- held the opinion, that for mental training, 
no matter what a man's work in life might afterwards be, 
nothing was equal to the study of the law. There is no 
better discipline for the faculties of the mind, and it not only 
teaches men to reason closely and exactly, but it also drives 
home the great lesson, so often left unlearned, that to most 
questions there are two sides at least, and that it is neces- 
sary, if you would master a subject, to know every side and 
phase and be prepared to meet all kinds of objections, if you 
wish to be successful in presenting your case. I was for- 
tunate also in entering the law school just at the time when 
Professor Langdell revolutionized the old methods of in- 
struction. For lectures at which students took notes in the 
conventional manner, he substituted teaching by cases, 
which forced the student to discuss the principles of law de- 
veloped in the decisions and thus to use his own mind, in- 
stead of learning on authority and accepting the conclusions 
of the writer or lecturer. This system, thus begun and 
since extended and fully carried out, has put the Harvard 
school at the head of all law schools, and has even drawn to 
it students from England. Incidentally the study of cases 
taught us also the history of the common law and of equity, 
and made the judges and chancellors of England and America 
not mere names in a foot-note to support an assertion, but 
living men whose influence upon the law, whose views and 
whose lives, were all of interest and moment. I learned a 
great deal of English history in this unlikely way, and turned 
from the law books to read the biographies of the men whose 
decisions I studied. In 1S74 I took my degree at the law 
school, and the next year I went into the office of Ropes & 
Gray and there had a brief experience of practice. At the 



STARTING IN LIFE: 1873-1880 247 

end of my year in the office I came up to be examined for 
admittance to the bar. My examiner was Judge Devens, 
an old friend of my family, a distinguished soldier as well 
as an eminent lawyer, and a most delightful man. He knew 
that I did not intend to practise, and he asked me some ques- 
tions about constitutional law, among others about the right 
of secession. I replied that I did not regard secession as a 
constitutional question at all. The question whether the 
Constitution had made a nation was a question of fact. 
Secession was revolution, and revolution could not be pro- 
vided for or prevented by a paper Constitution. I went 
into the point quite fully, and when I had finished, Judge 
Devens, who had listened to me with apparent interest, 
smilingly said: "That was hardly Mr. Webster's view." 
But he admitted me to the bar, of which I have been a 
member in good and regular standing ever since, although 
I have never practised. 

Years afterwards I was reminded of my own examination 
for the bar, and of my cheerful readiness to answer decisively 
a difficult and much mooted question, by the account which 
Mr. Reed (the Speaker) gave me of his own experience. 
He was in California after the war and there applied for 
admission to the bar. There was another applicant with 
him, a young Southerner, who had also come to the Pacific 
coast to seek his fortune. The judge said to Mr. Reed: 
"Are the legal tenders constitutional?" Mr. Reed at once 
replied : " They are." The judge then asked the same ques- 
tion of the young Southerner, who replied with equal prompt- 
ness that the "legal tenders" were not constitutional. 
"Very well," said the judge, "you are both admitted. Two 
men who can answer that question without hesitation ought 
to be admitted to any bar." 

The mention of Judge Devens brings to my mind Judge 
E. R. Hoar because he, like Devens, had been not only a 



248 EARLY MEMORIES 

Judge of our State Supreme Court but also Attorney-general 
of the United States in Grant's administration. His family 
had been conspicuous in the history of Massachusetts from 
the days of Leonard Hoar, President of Harvard in the sev- 
enteenth century, down to our own time. His father was 
Samuel Hoar, champion and defender of the slaves, a leader 
at the bar, a man of the highest and finest type of char- 
acter. Emerson said of him, that when he took his place 
on one of the benches in the town-hall, "there honor came 
and sat beside him." Judge Hoar was in all ways worthy 
of his inheritance. He possessed abilities of the first order, 
both as a lawyer and as a public man. A leader in the anti- 
slavery movement, he had been one of the founders of the 
Republican party in Massachusetts. He was by nature a 
partisan, for his convictions were strong, and he expressed 
them with uncompromising force. Many persons had a 
vague notion that he was also unduly austere, an idea which 
found expression in the story that he resigned from the 
Supreme Bench because he was unable to decide against 
both parties to a suit as he often longed to do. This con- 
ception, as so frequently happens, came I think wholly from 
those who saw only the external and unessential attributes 
and did not know the real man. Judge Hoar was in truth 
as tender-hearted and affectionate as he was fearless and 
high-minded in all the affairs both of public and private 
life. It has always been a great regret to me that I did 
not have the opportunity to know him better, for he awa- 
kened not only my interest but my admiration and respect 
both for his ability and his character. I met him occasion- 
ally at the Historical Society, and later when, in 1884, I 
was chosen a member of the board of overseers of Harvard, 
of which he was the presiding officer, I saw him constantly. 
He was very kind to me, very sympathetic in regard to the 
political opposition against which I was then contending, 



STARTING IN LIFE: 1873-1880 249 

and I shall always remember with gratitude that kindness 
and sympathy from a man so distinguished at a moment 
when both meant a great deal to me. I liked to watch him 
presiding at the board with his rather saturnine smile and 
with an occasional shaft of wit which much enlivened the 
proceedings. As a presiding officer he could take no part 
in the discussions and had but slight opportunity for the 
display of those powers of debate, and especially for the 
telling retort and quick repartee, which had made him 
famous both in Congress and in political discussion before 
popular audiences. He was one of the wittiest men of his 
time, and had also a keen sense of humor not always allied 
with wit. His sayings were widely repeated and quoted, for, 
if not always gentle, they never lacked the power of stri- 
king deep into the public mind. I will repeat only one here 
because it is characteristic not only of his quickness but of 
the ingenuity with which he could give an entirely unex- 
pected turn to an apparently obvious and commonplace 
incident. 

It was just on the eve of the Civil War, during the 
months of devouring anxiety which preceded the inaugura- 
tion of Lincoln. All was confusion and every sort of scheme 
was put forward to save the country from disunion. Worthy 
men, especially old conservative Whigs, were holding meet- 
ings in behalf of peace and union, which they usually wished 
to secure by surrendering to the South all that had been 
won in Lincoln's election. Among other bodies a society 
known as "The Survivors of the War of 1812" met and 
passed resolutions. I dimly remember a handsome, white- 
haired old gentleman with an empty sleeve pinned across 
his coat, who they told me was Colonel Aspinwall, who had 
lost his arm in the last war with Great Britain. The mem- 
bers of this society were men of that kind, patriotic, well- 
intentioned, but out of touch with the time and with no real- 



250 EARLY MEMORIES 

ization of the inexorable forces which had the country in 
their grip. So they came together and passed some futile 
peace resolutions. A friend asked Judge Hoar what he 
thought of the resolutions of the " Society of the Survivors 
of the War of 1812." "It seems to me," said the judge, 
"that men who would pass resolutions like those would 
probably survive any war." Anecdotes might be multi- 
plied by anyone who knew Judge Hoar in those days, but 
my thought here is not so much of the humorist and wit 
as of the eminent lawyer and distinguished public man who 
was good enough to step out of his way to be a kind and 
sympathetic friend to me. 

These slight reminiscences of Judge Hoar and of my 
admittance to the bar by Judge Devens bring to my mind 
another distinguished lawyer and eminent judge, of whom 
I saw much in those days. This was Horace Gray, judge 
and then Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Massa- 
chusetts, and later for many years a Justice of the Supreme 
Court of the United States. He was the older, much older 
half-brother of my early companion and contemporary, 
Russell Gray, and in a remote fashion I had always seen and 
known him. He was also the half-brother of John C. Gray, 
in whose office I studied law, and who is not only an eminent 
lawyer of great ability and learning, but a most accomplished 
and cultivated man, for many years a distinguished professor 
at the Harvard Law School. In this way I came veiy natu- 
rally to know Judge Gray, and to see him more and more 
frequently after I returned to Boston from Europe. He 
lived not far from us, on Beacon Hill, and as he asked me to 
come to see him I fell into the habit of going there in the 
evening and sitting with him, sometimes, I fear, to uncon- 
scionable hours, while we smoked and talked. He was kind 
enough to take a genuine interest in what I was doing, or 
trying to do, which is a sure way to the heart of a young 



STARTING IN LIFE: 1873-1880 251 

man. He knew a great deal about American history, as he 
did about most subjects, and was especially versed in all 
that portion of it which concerned Boston and Massachusetts, 
to which my attention was just then particularly directed. 
As a matter of course his knowledge of lawyers and judges, 
both at home and in England, was unlimited, and although 
he rarely talked about the law he had a great deal to say 
about those who practised it, and about the traditions of 
the English and American bar, which was far more amusing. 
But our chief subject of discourse was politics. The judge, 
from his position, was obliged to be silent as to things po- 
litical, but by nature he was admirably fitted to be a dis- 
tinguished public man, and he loved politics dearly. He 
held strong opinions and was a very pronounced Republi- 
can. Feeling that he could rely on my discretion, he talked 
to me with entire freedom, and liked to hear from me all 
the details of local as well as general politics. He had but 
little liking for the various independent movements, in 
which as a young man I was interested, nor did he put 
much faith in Mr. Schurz and the other leaders of those 
movements; but after I became one of the active men in 
the Republican party in which we had both been brought 
up, he was the most sympathetic and helpful of friends. I 
was often asked to dinner at his house, where it was always 
most agreeable to be, for he had the faculty of gathering 
about him the best and most interesting men of all pro- 
fessions and callings. Of one such occasion I find a note 
in my most fragmentary diary. We were asked to meet 
Mr. Edward Freeman, the English historian, and the "we" 
included Judge John Lowell, of the United States Court; 
Judge Endicott, Secretary of War in Mr. Cleveland's first 
cabinet; Francis Parkman, the historian; Mr. John C. 
Gray; Mr. Melville Bigelow, the well-known writer upon 
early law, and myself. I looked forward with much in- 



252 EARLY MEMORIES 

terest to meeting Mr. Freeman, for my studies had led me 
to read his books with care, and while I had not always 
agreed with him I had much admired his force, learning, 
and vigor of statement. Memory recalls him clearly, and 
a feeling of disappointment as well. The contemporary 
record in this case does not contradict memory and brings 
back the scene very distinctly. It runs as follows, in the 
unchartered freedom of brief notes: 

"Mr. Freeman, a short, stout Englishman — full, rather 
good reddish brown beard — tallowy, yellow hair, of a dark 
shade — small mouth apparently defective in teeth. Spoke 
but little. When he did, with point and often humor. 
Seemed to understand what was being said when he spoke 
and yet appeared utterly heavy and indifferent most of the 
. time, not infrequently yawning. Seemed almost impossible 
that he should be a man of great historical reputation who 
had written some really good books. No snap, no quick- 
ness, no vivacity, no sympathy. Judge Lowell's dry and 
pleasant humor seemed to escape Mr. Freeman unless it 
was repeated." 

Obviously we did not interest our distinguished guest, 
although, as I was the youngest and most silent of the party, 
I think I may say that those present were intelligent, well- 
bred, and well-educated men, not without achieved dis- 
tinction, and quite fit for any conversation possible even to 
the historian of the Norman Conquest. I remember that 
at the time the verses which had recently been printed in 
England came into my head: 

" Ladling butter from their mutual tubs, 
Stubbs butters Freeman, 
Freeman butters Stubbs." 

Possibly we were deficient in the agreeable art here attrib- 
uted to the excellent and learned bishop. 



STARTING IN LIFE: 1873-1880 253 

Not long after this dinner, which occurred in October, 
1881, Judge Gray was appointed a Justice of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, and consequently lived in Wash- 
ington from that time until his death. Whenever, after his 
appointment, I went to Washington I dined at his house, 
where, as in Boston, he brought together the most interest- 
ing men then at the bar or in public life. A few years 
later I also went to Washington as a member of the House, 
and later as senator, so that once more I saw him constantly 
and our old talks were renewed. 

The high judicial reputation which Judge Gray had ac- 
quired in Massachusetts was greatly increased and extended 
during his service in the Supreme Court. He was a learned 
judge in the fullest sense, and his learning was as wide as it 
was profound. To a rapidity of acquisition such as is 
seldom seen was joined a memory of extraordinary strength 
and exactness. On any question which arose precedents 
and authorities seemed, without effort, to assemble and 
marshal themselves in order before him. Some of his opin- 
ions, like the case of the "Paquette Habana," were complete 
presentations not only of the law, but of the entire history 
of the subject. It was sometimes said, in criticism, that 
Judge Gray indulged too freely in authorities, tempted 
thereto by his immense and always ready knowledge. The 
criticism never seemed to me to have much weight, but it 
is certain that he was quite capable of plucking out the heart 
of a case and setting forth sharply and very briefly the cen- 
tral principle, stripped of all citations or comments, as he 
did in his opinion in one of the "Island cases." 

Judge Gray was a very imposing and impressive figure, 
especially in his judicial robes, and on the bench physical 
appearance has its especial value, for it is well that the 
court should not look insignificant or unimportant. Gray 
certainly fulfilled every requirement. He was very tall, 



254 EARLY MEMORIES 

four or five inches over six feet, and large in proportion. 
His head was massive and fine, and his full, rosy face was 
at once strong and of high intelligence. I never saw a man 
who looked the part of a judge in a high court of law so well 
as Horace Gray. 

Writing as I am at this point of lawyers, what I have 
just said of Judge Gray's stature and imposing appearance 
brings to my mind, by the law of contrast, I suppose, an- 
other great lawyer whom I came to know in those early days 
of the seventies and eighties. He was born in Boston, 
educated at the Boston Latin School, at Yale, and at the 
Harvard Law School, but he had left his native city and had 
been admitted to the New York bar some years before I 
was born. I therefore never saw him in my boyhood, and 
I think he was first impressed upon my mind by my reading 
about his noted argument in the impeachment of Andrew 
Johnson, the first President I ever looked upon, when he 
came to Boston on his famous "swing around the circle." 
Gray's whole life was judicial. Mr. Evarts, on the other 
hand, was never on the bench and always at the bar, except 
when he was attorney-general in one cabinet, secretary of 
state in another, and senator from New York toward the 
close of his active life. He was the very reverse of Gray in 
appearance: rather short, very slight, with a keen, intellec- 
tual face, so thin that he appeared almost hollow-cheeked; 
and yet he never failed to impress any one who looked at 
him with an immediate sense of penetrating power and mental 
force. In the spare, wiry figure there was no sign of feeble- 
ness, and over the thin, well-cut face, with its long jaw, was 
a broad forehead and a wide space for brains. Of Dutch 
descent on the father's side, and on the other a grandson of 
Roger Sherman, Mr. Evarts always seemed to me. both in 
looks and mental quality, a characteristic type of the best 
New England stock. He presented a striking appearance 



STARTING IN LIFE: 1873-1880 255 

as he walked along with a large, imperfectly brushed hat, 
always a tall hat, pushed far down on the back of his head, 
and with his coat collar, in cold weather, rising up above 
his ears. Once seen he was not a figure to be forgotten, 
and the last man, one would think, to be impersonated by 
anybody. Yet on a certain occasion, when election frauds 
under the auspices of Tammany were rampant in New York, 
on going to the polling-place and giving his name to the 
election clerk he was told that Mr. Evarts had already voted. 
"Has he, indeed?" said Mr. Evarts. "I hope he voted 
right." 

I had the happiness to make his personal acquaintance 
on one of my early political excursions to New York. He 
identified me immediately as the nephew of my uncle, 
George Cabot, who had been his classmate at the Boston 
Latin School, and he was most kind and friendly to me then 
and ever afterwards. I find in my fragments of a diary that 
I was in New York on April 5, 1885, and made the following 
note: 

In the evening we went to the Irving dinner for which I came 
on. Sat near the front between John McCullough, the actor, and 
Roosevelt. McCullough was never a great actor, although a 
popular, successful and painstaking one, but he was also, as I 
was told, one of the most pleasant and good natured of men. He 
is now quite broken by a brain disease — very pathetic to look at 
— fine face — no speculation in his eyes. The dinner was very 
pleasant. Evarts, Irving and Beecher spoke admirably, the rest 
poorly. Just before dinner I had a few words with Evarts. Mc- 
Cullough and Florence (the actor) came up to Evarts and recalled 
to him a voyage they had made together. " In what ship was it? " 
asked some one. " I don't know," said Evarts. " I only know that 
we were all in transports." The other night at the Yale dinner 
just as Evarts rose to speak the large sugar ornament in front of 
him fell over. Evarts without a moment's hesitation said: "Ah, 
gentlemen, this is a candied tribute I did not expect." 



256 EARLY MEMORIES 

A little later in the same month Mr. Evarts came to 
Boston to make a political speech before the Middlesex 
Club, and on the following day, April 19, he dined at my 
house. I give the account of the dinner which I find in my 
roughly written notes, just as it is, with abrupt and de- 
tached sentences: 

April 19th, Sunday. — Evarts dined here today. I had to meet 
him Dr. Holmes, Mr. Howells, Judge Devens, Governor Long, 
Francis A. Walker, William G. Russell, F. E. Parker — these with 
Mrs. Lodge and myself made up the ten. It was very pleasant. 
Evarts is by all odds the most brilliant after dinner talker I ever 
heard. His talk is phosphorescent, flashing all the time and with 
no more apparent effort than the waves. He told a good story of 
the Great Eastern case and George Ticknor Curtis' rhetoric; 
"Six men, six, save that Leviathian etc! ! Six men would be 
worth no more than six — six — six babies." Evarts interrupting 
him: "Six babies are something in a squall." Disgust of Curtis 
and breakup of rhetoric. 

Evarts said that Sir Roundell Palmer acknowledged to him 
after full consideration that Judah P. Benjamin was the leader of 
the English bar, — a very extraordinary case. Evarts told many 
good stories, as of the convict, who thanked the clergyman who 
had obtained his pardon and returning with gratitude the bible 
lent him, said he hoped he should never have occasion to use it 
again. But it is not so much as a story teller as in the flow of 
conversation that Evarts excells. We sat at table until nearly 
midnight and then Evarts rose with great reluctance, ensconced 
himself in his rough, old beaver hat, extending from his coat collar 
to his eye brows, and slowly withdrew. 

On that same occasion, although it is not in the diary, 
he said something to me alone which I have always remem- 
bered. I was just then beginning to make studies for my 
"Life of Washington," and I told Mr. Evarts in that con- 
nection how much I had been amused by his reply to Lord 
Coleridge. A little more than a year before when Lord 



STARTING IN LIFE: 1873-1880 257 

Coleridge was in America some one pointed out the place 
near Fredericksburg where Washington had thrown a silver 
dollar across the Rappahannock. Upon the lord chief 
justice expressing surprise, Evarts said: "You know, of 
course, that a dollar went much farther in those days than 
it does now." The story ran through the newspapers, be- 
came a twice-told tale, and had a deserved success. On my 
recalling it Mr. Evarts smiled in his dry way and said: 
"Yes, it was very well for the moment, but I was humbled 
soon after by finding how much more witty other people 
were. Some perfectly unknown newspaper writer put in a 
paragraph to this effect : ' What Mr. Evarts ought to have 
said; That to throw a dollar across the Rappahannock was 
nothing to a man who had thrown a sovereign across the 
Atlantic' " Neither I nor any one else had seen that para- 
graph in the newspapers, but it amused me to learn how 
Mr. Evarts had revised his first version. 

The fact was that wherever he went he left behind him 
some saying or witticism which clings to the place like an 
inscription on the walls. Eveiy one, for example, who goes 
to the State Department is aware that Mr. Evarts, looking 
at an elevator car as it slowly ascended, filled to overflowing, 
observed that "he had never before seen so large a collection 
taken up for foreign missions." Eveiy visitor to the same 
department knows that Mr. Evarts proposed to have carved 
on one side of his door: "Come ye disconsulate," and on 
the other: "Lasciate ogni speranza voi ch'entrate." Mr. 
Evarts was noted for procrastination, for not doing to-day 
what might be done to-morrow. Mr. Schurz told me that 
when they were in the Hayes cabinet together it was very 
difficult to extract from Evarts a report on any matter 
referred to the State Department. One day the President 
was extremely urgent, and Mr. Evarts said: "You don't 
sufficiently realize, Mr. President, the great truth that al- 



258 EARLY MEMORIES 

most any question will settle itself if you will only let it 
alone long enough." 

When he was in the Senate, my colleague in after years, 
Senator Hoar, had a bill about which he was very anxious, 
and which had been referred to Evarts for report. Months 
passed and no bill appeared. Meeting Mr. Evarts one day 
in the corridor, Mr. Hoar, who was his first cousin, said: 
"By the way, Evarts, when you report that bill of mine, 
just notify my executors." "They will be gentlemen whom 
I shall be delighted to meet," was the reply. Mr. Evarts 
might delay action on a report, but he never procrastinated 
in repartee. The little stories, all well known, which I have 
just repeated, illustrate his extraordinary quickness, his 
possession of that rare faculty of saying a good thing, of 
uttering a witticism on the instant when by no possibility 
could there have been any chance for preparation of any 
kind. But the ready wit, the humor, and the jest, were 
really the least part of his remarkable qualities. Mr. Evarts 
was a man of the first order of ability. He was a great 
lawyer, for many years the acknowledged head of the 
American bar. He was an eminent public man, distin- 
guished in every office he held, and a high-minded public 
servant. He was a powerful and eloquent as well as a 
humorous and witty speaker. It used to be said that he 
spoke sometimes at too great length, and I remember hear- 
ing him say in a speech that he " had been criticised as many 
of our railroads were criticised for a lack of terminal facili- 
ties." But whether he spoke briefly or at length I never 
heard of his wearying any one. Personally he was the most 
agreeable and delightful of men, and I have always been 
very grateful for the unvarying kindness which he showed 
to me when I was a young, unknown, and wholly unim- 
portant person. 

The diary entry of the guests at my little dinner for Mr. 



STARTING IN LIFE: 1873-1880 259 

Evarts brings to my mind another friend of whom, as I 
have been speaking of lawyers, I must say a word here, al- 
though I have no intention of launching out into recollec- 
tions or stories of either bar or bench at the time when I 
completed my legal studies. Mr. Francis E. Parker was a 
distinguished member of the Suffolk bar, one of the leading 
lawyers of Boston. Yet it is not in his professional capacity 
that I think of him, but as a friend to whom I was much 
attached and as a very unusual and quite remarkable man. 
That he was not known beyond his State and city was 
wholly his own choice, for he had talents which would have 
carried him to the front rank in public life had he so desired, 
and he might easily have figured as one of the best-known 
lawyers of his time if he had ever been willing to push him- 
self forward in the practice which not only brings professional 
renown but which also rivets the attention of the public. 
He had, however, a contempt for notoriety and a dislike of 
publicity, and he turned deliberately away from oppor- 
tunities which seemed to involve either. A graduate of 
Harvard, and devoted all Ins life to the interests and the 
affairs of the university, he was a scholar in the broad sense, 
a lover of books, widely read and a most accomplished lin- 
guist. He had travelled much and seen a great deal, look- 
ing with an observant eye on men and cities, and upon the 
works of ancient and modern art, of which he was very fond. 
In his day he was one of the best-known figures in Boston, 
and his wit and his peculiarities were quoted and laughed at 
by every one. Never married, he lived in chambers sur- 
rounded by his books, his prints and pictures, and by the 
many things he had collected in his wanderings. He was 
most hospitable and kind, especially to young men to whom 
he could give a helping hand. Beneath the calm exterior 
and cool manner, behind the sarcasm and wit, was a most 
generous and sympathetic nature, concealed by preference 
from the world at large, which knew him chiefly by clever 



260 EARLY MEMORIES 

epigrams, sometimes more witty than good-natured. He 
was impatient of dulness, especially if accompanied by pre- 
tence or pomposity. I remember his saying of a person 
for whom he had, I thought, an unreasonable and too seri- 
ous dislike: "I knew his father well, a very honest and 
excellent man. He kept an intelligence office — not at the 
time of X's birth, however." X at one period undertook 
to be a real estate broker, and Parker, who administered 
large trusts, being asked by a client to recommend a good, 
permanent investment, replied: "I should define a perma- 
nent investment as purchasing some real estate and giving 
it to X to sell." 

Like Lamb's Hester, he had: 

" A waking eye, a prying mind, 
A hawk's keen sight ye cannot blind." 

Perhaps these are not gifts to be desired, for they make one 
perceive foibles when affection would fain have blindness. 
Such was the case, at all events, with Mr. Parker. I re- 
member his saying of an intimate friend — very probably he 
said it to him, for he was wholly honest— a friend whom he 
loved, and in common with every one else admired: 'That 
if he had lived in the Middle Ages he would have gone to 
the stake for a principle under a misapprehension as to the 
facts." 

This epigrammatic force was very characteristic and very 
telling in his conversation. I have heard him debate in 
the board of overseers of the college, and he was one of the 
best and keenest debaters I have ever seen in action, and I 
have seen and heard many. He was elected once to the 
State Senate from a. Boston district. Everybody thought 
that there, in a political body, among all sorts and conditions 
of men, he would be particularly out of place. On the con- 
trary, he proved a great success. The members from the 



STARTING IN LIFE: 1873-1880 261 

country districts, and indeed all the members, not only liked 
him, but came to admire him and feel proud of the distinction 
he brought to the body. He declined a re-election, and never 
held office again. It seemed as if he merely wished to dem- 
onstrate that he could succeed in politics if he chose, and 
having done so, he went out and closed the door behind him. 
His friends thought he would fail in a popular representative 
assembly, because they believed that the members of such a 
body could not penetrate what was external and superficial 
and find the real man of strong ability and character and 
of genuine sympathy behind the personal peculiarities. In 
so thinking they gravely underestimated the shrewd intelli- 
gence of the men who in those days sat in the Massachu- 
setts Legislature. 

Mr. Parker was a man who valued details. He dressed 
most quietly but very well and carefully, and in a studiously 
finished way. He always looked his part — the barrister of 
high standing. With a well-knit, rather slender figure and 
a clear-cut, strong, and intellectual face, he was not a man 
to be passed by unnoticed. He spoke his native language 
extremely well and very scrupulously, with a slight English 
inflection ; his voice was clear and even and his enunciation 
quite perfect. People thought these qualities and a sharp- 
ness of repartee from which he could not refrain would 
excite prejudice in the Legislature. As there was a genu- 
ine man behind them, they aroused admiration. 

This mention of his care and respect for the language 
which he spoke brings to my mind an occasion interesting 
on other accounts, but which is indelibly associated in my 
mind with Mr. Parker. I find in my diary, under date of 
April 12, 1883, the following: 

Dined at General Whittier's to meet Ex-President Diaz of 
Mexico. Very handsome dinner— music, etc. There were twenty 



262 EARLY MEMORIES 

at the dinner — all men. I sat between Frank Parker and Endi- 
cott Peabody. Diaz himself has a strong, Indian half-breed face; 
ruthless, calm, vigorous, soldierlike; an ideal leader of South 
American revolution. He speaks no English and French badly. 
Senator Rubio (with Diaz) sat opposite to me; pure Spanish type; 
spoke no English but some little French. Very pleasant dinner. 

In view of all that has happened since, my impression of 
Diaz in 1883 seems now to have been fairly accurate. I 
remember Senator Rubio asked me what I thought of his 
chief. I made suitable reply, and added with a smile that 
he looked rather stern, and as if he would not hesitate to 
shoot an enemy before breakfast. "Shoot an enemy!" 
said Senator Rubio; "I have known him shoot three 
hundred enemies before breakfast." 

But what amused me most at the dinner was Parker. 
On his other side was some distinguished Mexican who 
asked him if he spoke Spanish. "No," said Parker in 
Spanish, "English is the only language I know other than 
my own." This answer naturally left the Mexican rather 
dazed. Then I heard Parker, in seeking a common medium 
of conversation, address his neighbor in Italian, which failed, 
then in Latin, which also failed, and finally in French, with 
which they managed to get along sufficiently well. 

Parker was very fond of Italians and of Italy. Almost 
every summer he went abroad and took a walking tour in 
the Alps or the Tyrol. One year he chanced to go by Turin, 
and the next year, as it happened, he went the same way and 
stopped at the same hotel where he had passed a night a 
twelvemonth before. The waiter made the customary as- 
sumption of recognizing him, as Parker thought, but when 
he offered the wine-card he said: "II solito, signor?" This 
so delighted Parker that ever after he made a practice of 
going to Turin just for the pleasure of hearing that waiter 
ask him once a year if he would take his usual wine. 



STARTING IN LIFE : 1873-1880 263 

I might run on with many memories of one of the most 
delightful of men whose humor and wit and wisdom I am 
happy to say I prized at the time. But I will stop here with 
this very inadequate attempt to recall and picture a man 
who gave me his friendship, and whose death, all too soon, 
has deprived me of one whom I have never ceased to miss. 

I did not confine my studies at this time, however, to 
law and equity and the statutes and practice of Massa- 
chusetts. While I was still in the law school I entered upon 
a post-graduate course in Anglo-Saxon law with Henry 
Adams. There were two other students: Ernest Young, a 
very clever man, who died prematurely, and J. Laurence 
Laughlin, who has since reached distinction as a political 
economist. In this field the forlorn studies of the year 
after my return from Europe proved of use, but the work 
imposed upon me demanded a wide investigation of early 
charters, laws, and chronicles, and I was obliged to learn 
Anglo-Saxon sufficiently well to read the original documents. 
My subject was "The Anglo-Saxon Land Law." The 
essay which I wrote thereon was neither easy nor cheer- 
ful reading, but it represented a great deal of honest work 
and of thorough and original investigation. I offered it as 
the thesis for which I received the degree of Ph.D. from 
Harvard in 1876, and it was also included in a volume which 
Mr. Adams published on Anglo-Saxon law, containing essays 
by himself and by Young and Laughlin. Years afterwards 
Sir Frederick Pollock sent me his book on "Land Laws," 
and I found in it a note discussing some opinion which I 
had expressed in my essay on "The Anglo-Saxon Land 
Law." So completely had I been drawn to other subjects 
and other interests that every vestige of knowledge of what 
I had myself written had been swept away, and I stared in 
blank ignorance at my own statement. I could not say, as 
Swift did, when in his old age he looked at the "Tale of a 



264 EARLY MEMORIES 

Tub," "Good God! what a genius I had when I wrote that 
book!" but I thought: "How much I knew when I wrote 
that essay which I have now ceased to know!" It seems 
as if the mind could hold a certain amount upon a given 
number of subjects, and when it is full a new subject dis- 
places an old one. I suppose I could, with much effort, 
recover my knowledge of "the Anglo-Saxon land law," 
but I was impressed by the completeness of its erasure as I 
read Sir Frederick Pollock's note. 

In studying law and in the work of editing the North 
American I had been gradually drawn toward the history of 
my own country. My inclination in that direction had 
been strengthened by my carrying out a long-cherished plan 
of bringing together the letters of my great-grandfather, 
George Cabot, senator from Massachusetts from 1791 to 
1796, and one of the leading Federalists of his time, and of 
printing them with an accompanying memoir. Mr. Cabot, 
who seemed throughout his life to aim at self-effacement, 
had destroyed all his letters just before his death. This 
was a great misfortune, for he had been an intimate of 
Hamilton, as well as in close relations of friendship with 
Washington, Oliver Wolcott, Timothy Pickering, and all 
the leading statesmen of the days when the government of 
the United States under the Constitution was being estab- 
lished. But Mr. Cabot's correspondents had preserved his 
letters, even if he had destroyed theirs, and I was able to get 
them from the various collections and sometimes copies of 
their letters to him when such had been kept. In this way 
I gathered an abundance of material. The book developed 
into quite an ample volume, and also into a study of New 
England federalism, and of the conditions which led to the 
famous Hartford Convention, of which Mr. Cabot was 
president. 

This biography of my great-grandfather, my first ven- 



STARTING IN LIFE : 1873-1880 265 

ture in the literary field, is inseparably connected in my 
mind with Colonel Henry Lee, to whose assistance, and still 
more to whose unflagging sympathy, I was deeply indebted 
in the preparation of my book. I had always known him, 
for his eldest son had been at school with me, and he was 
an old friend as well as the kinsman of my mother and the 
companion and contemporary of her only brother. But 
our intercourse had necessarily been merely that of a ma- 
ture man with a boy young enough to be his son. Now he 
became my friend, adviser, and helper in the work I had 
undertaken. As I have just said, we were related. His 
grandmother was the only sister of my great-grandfather, 
who had left college to go to sea with his brother-in-law, 
Joseph Lee, with whom he was later associated in business. 
The actual relationship was not very near, but with Colonel 
Lee family feeling was very strong, and blood was a good 
deal thicker than water. Moreover, he felt intensely about 
our early politics, and was as violent a Federalist as if he 
had lived through the administrations of Washington and 
Adams and Jefferson. So when I undertook to write the 
biography of his great-uncle, whose memory he had always 
cherished and revered, he took as much interest in the book 
as I did. To him I not only owed all my information about 
the family, but the fruit of his own researches, and all his 
knowledge of that period in our history, were put freely at 
my service. My gratitude at the time I tried to express to 
him; it was certainly both deep and sincere. But I like 
to make this little record of it here. Apart from the book 
I was grateful also for his friendship, for he was a man 
whose friendship was an honor. For many years he was 
one of the most respected as he was one of the best-known 
men in Boston. Although he was always actively engaged 
in large and very successful business affairs, he was one of 
the most public-spirited men I have ever known. He never 



266 EARLY MEMORIES 

sought or desired public office of any kind, but he was 
always ready to serve State or nation or city without any 
thought of personal recognition or reward. During the war 
he was a member of Governor Andrew's staff, and labored 
unceasingly in the heavy and anxious work of organizing 
and sending out the regiments of Massachusetts. He was 
a thorough American of the best type, intensely patriotic 
and a hater of political misdeeds, as in his youth he had 
hated and fought against slavery. No public movement 
for good in Boston was complete without him, and he was 
as fearless as he was active and energetic. He entered 
into every field: the college, the city, the State, all com- 
manded his time and his labors. He was generous in all 
ways, giving not only to every good object, but indulging 
largely in that hidden kindness to men and women which 
carries happiness and release from care to those upon 
whom the bounty, delicately given, falls. His interests were 
many. He knew a great deal of our own history, both 
local and national. He was a lover of books and literature, 
of art in all forms, and had a strong taste for the theatre, 
being himself the best amateur actor I have ever seen. The 
chief characteristic about Mr. Lee, as I look back on him, 
was strength — mental, physical, and moral. He had a 
great deal of humor and said many good things which were 
widely quoted, sometimes, I think, because he had a way 
of freeing his mind and uttering rather searching criticisms 
in the presence of the person criticised. It always seemed to 
me that the old Puritan qualities were very vital in him. 
The soul of honor himself, he was not disposed to make 
allowances for any one who seemed to him to deviate 
from the strait and narrow path. He had strong opinions, 
vigorous likes and dislikes, and some equally strong prej- 
udices, all very similar to the attributes of his ancestors 
who had waged the great rebellion and established the colony 



STARTING IN LIFE: 1873-1880 267 

of Massachusetts Bay. It is easy in these laxer days to 
point out the defects of the Puritan qualities, but in the 
last analysis it is upon those fundamental qualities that 
enduring states are built. In later years Mr. Lee sometimes 
did not approve my course in politics and never hesitated 
to express to me his disapproval, but he always made me 
feel that his personal affection had not changed, and I trust 
that it remained, as mine did for him, undiminished to the 
end, like the gratitude I owed him and the genuine admira- 
tion which I felt for a strong and fine character, of which 
we have none too many at any time. 

In this fashion I was drawn insensibly toward American 
history, and in 1875 I was appointed a lecturer at Harvard 
and gave a course upon the history of the American colonies 
and subsequently upon the early history of the United States. 
I lectured for three years, resigning my post in 1879 at the 
end of the college year. President Eliot wrote me a letter 
on my retirement, which was a great gratification to me at 
the time. I give it here to show that I at least worked 
faithfully : 

Harvard University 
12 Feb. 1879. 

MY DEAR MR. LODGE — 

I take note of your intention to resign your instructorship at 
the close of the current year. Your withdrawal is not unexpected, 
but still leaves the Corporation greatly perplexed about the future 
support of the electives in American History. I should be very 
sorry to have this teaching cease, yet I confess that I do not see 
who is to carry it on. That you have found your work at the 
University not without profit and interest is a great satisfaction 
to me. I assure you that the Corporation feel under obligations 
to you for your almost gratuitous services and will sincerely regret 
your withdrawal. 

Do you know anybody whom you would think qualified to 
carry on your work? 

Very truly yours, 

Charles W. Eliot. 



268 EARLY MEMORIES 

My lectures at Harvard led me to make an elaborate 
study of manners, customs, and social conditions in the 
colonies as they appeared here and there in the original 
sources. This involved a great deal of labor and research, 
and the result was embodied in a course of lectures delivered 
before the Lowell Institute. The lectures were so far suc- 
cessful that Mr. George William Curtis wrote to me, asking 
me to make a book of them and let the Harpers publish it. 
I need hardly say that I was much elated by this proposi- 
tion and promptly closed with it. But I spoiled my book 
by adding summaries of the political history of each colony 
to the studies of manners and customs, which were then 
fresh and original, and which were afterwards found use- 
ful by other writers who in some cases omitted to mention 
their indebtedness. The political summaries, on the other 
hand, were necessarily condensed, and were hopelessly dry. 
They made the book long and cumbrous and defeated the 
purpose I had in view, which was to give a popular view of 
the colonies as they actually existed, and of the daily life 
and habits of the people who separated themselves from 
England and founded the government of the United States. 

Still I had some reason to be pleased at my second at- 
tempt at authorship. The "Short History of the Colonies" 
sold fairly well at the moment, and although it was a keen 
disappointment to me, and fell far below what I had hoped 
to accomplish, it continued to sell as a text-book for col- 
leges and schools, simply because it had the merit of com- 
pleteness, and was as accurate as I could make it. My life 
of Mr. Cabot, which appeared first, had an unexpected suc- 
cess. It was merely a contribution to the materials of our 
history, and could only hope to interest students of the 
period and historians. But it had the good fortune to fall 
into the hands of Gail Hamilton (Miss Abigail Dodge), who 
had conceived a lively dislike for me because in 1876, the 



STARTING IN LIFE: 1873-1880 269 

year prior to the publication of the book, I had been active 
in opposing Mr. Blaine's nomination as President. She 
devoted no less than four articles, filling eight columns of 
the New York Tribune, to an elaborate review of the biog- 
raphy, attacking and making fun of me and my respected 
ancestor in every possible way. I was much surprised, but 
rather pleased, for I had not expected so much attention 
from any one. I met my kinsman Colonel Thomas Went- 
worth Higginson one day just after the appearance of Miss 
Dodge's article, and he said to me: "I hope you do not 
mind Gail Hamilton's attack. You ought to be very 
grateful. I wish that she would assail one of my books in 
that way, for I have observed, and you will by experience 
learn to agree with me, that the practical value of a critical 
notice is in proportion to its length, and not in what is said." 
Gail Hamilton, in any event, sold my first edition for me, 
and greatly to my surprise, made another necessary. 

Apart from books I gradually made my way as a writer 
in other directions, and became a contributor to the Nation 
and to the Atlantic Monthly, as well as to other periodicals. 
I remember well the profound satisfaction I felt when I 
found that from my lectures and my writings I had made 
three thousand dollars in a year, and had thus demonstrated 
my ability to earn my own living and to take care of my 
family by my own exertions if I should have the misfortune 
to lose all my property. 

The preceding pages, I fear, give the impression that my 
life during these years was all work and no play, and that 
it had no lighter or more lively side. This would be a very 
erroneous idea to deduce from the fact that I have given a 
condensed account of my occupations, which were of great 
interest to me and of very slight consequence to anybody 
else. I have done this merely to get myself out of the way, 
so that I might turn to an account of some of the people I 



270 EARLY MEMORIES 

knew at that period— people who, I think, are of real and 
general interest. 

My pursuits in Boston and Cambridge led to many 
things: to various associations and to acquaintances and 
friendships in which I found much pleasure. In 1876 I was 
elected a member of the Massachusetts Historical Society 
— one of the youngest members ever chosen, I believe — and 
I not only took a keen interest in its meetings, but met 
there many men of distinction in letters and in other fields 
whom I had as a boy looked up to from a respectful dis- 
tance. When I became a member Mr. Robert C. Winthrop, 
of whom I shall have something to say later, was president. 
Dr. Samuel Greene, who happily still lives, and Dr. George 
Ellis, Mr. Winthrop's successor, were, apart from the pres- 
ident, the two great pillars of the society, for which their 
names seemed to be interchangeable terms. Dr. Ellis was a 
retired Unitarian clergyman. He had a comfortable fortune 
and had for many years devoted himself to historical studies, 
possessing strong antiquarian tastes. He was an authority 
on the history of our Indians and widely read in all American 
history, especially that portion of it which related to Boston 
and Massachusetts. Blest with a veiy retentive memory, 
he knew all the traditions of the town and endless details re- 
lating to persons and families. The axiom that one fact is 
gossip and two connected facts are history had for him no 
terrors, and in no wise diminished Ms liking for a fact or an 
incident, even if it stood solitary and detached. 

I remember well, when I had brought down on myself 
the wrath of certain surviving Webster Whigs because I 
had stated in my biography of the great senator that, like 
the younger Pitt, he drank more at times than was good for 
him, Dr. Ellis told me the following anecdote. On the 
occasion of the completion of the Bunker Hill Monument 
Mr. Webster was to deliver the address, and Dr. Ellis, then 



STARTING IN LIFE : 1873-1880 271 

pastor of the Unitarian Church in Charlestown, was the 
chaplain of the day. Preparatory to going to the platform 
Mr. Webster came to the house of Dr. Ellis, and on arriving 
said he would like something to drink before speaking. Dr. 
Ellis took him into the dining-room, where he had made 
some little preparation for his guest. Mr. Webster asked 
for brandy, and taking the decanter, filled an old-fashioned 
tumbler full to the brim and drank it off. Then he went 
out and made his speech, one of his famous addresses. 
After the ceremonies he returned to Dr. Ellis's home and 
drank another tumbler full of raw brandy, and after a little 
chat departed. Dr. Ellis said that so far as he could see 
Mr. Webster was not affected in the slightest degree by 
what seem to the average man veiy potent and generous 
draughts of brandy taken in the morning without eating 
anything. It reminds one of Pitt and Dundas and their 
four— or was it six?— bottles of port at a sitting. 

In May, 1882, 1 met Dr. Ellis at the house of his brother, 
Dr. Rufus Ellis, and he gave me an account of a visit he 
made to New York with John Quincy Adams. His story 
interested me so much that I wrote it down when I went 
home. My note runs as follows: "It was hi 1844. The 
occasion was the fiftieth anniversary of the New York His- 
torical Society. The Massachusetts Historical Society sent 
a committee, Mr. Adams being the oldest and Dr. Ellis the 
youngest member. At the cars Mr. Charles Francis Adams 
appeared and told Dr. Ellis that he had tried to persuade 
his father to take a servant but the old gentleman, then 
nearly eighty, 1 replied: 'I can take care of myself as well as 
you can of yourself. I won't have a servant.' Mr. Charles 
Francis Adams therefore asked Dr. Ellis to look after his 
father. They went to 'Bunker's' on the Battery and had 
a large airy room together. Mr. Adams would have no 

1 He was seventy-seven years old. 



272 EARLY MEMORIES 

fire (it was November) but insisted on having the window 
wide open. After they were both in bed Mr. Adams would 
begin stories and narrate all sorts of experiences full of fire 
and vigor, and, Dr. Ellis said, most amusing; that he had 
to stuff the sheet in his mouth to prevent himself from 
roaring with laughter. After talking some time Mr. Adams 
would say: 'Now it is time to go to sleep and I am going 
to say my prayers. I shall say also the verse my mother 
taught me when a child. I have never failed to repeat it 
every night of my life. I have said it in Holland, Prussia, 
Russia, England, Washington and Quincy. I say it out 
loud always and I don't mumble it either.' Then he would 
repeat in a loud, clear voice: 



K i 



Now I lay me down to sleep.' 



At about 5 a. m. Mr. Adams would arise, and, a wood fire 
being laid, would get from his trunk an old-fashioned tinder- 
box — he despised the recently invented lucifer matches — 
and would strike a light, kindle the fire and light his candle. 
Then he would strip, place a basin of water on the floor and 
sponge himself vigorously from head to foot. Then par- 
tially dressed, sit down by the fire, place the Bible on his 
knees, and holding the candle in one hand, expound a Psalm 
in the most vigorous manner to Dr. Ellis. At the banquet 
of the Historical Society Mr. Adams made a speech. Jack- 
son had recently accused him of lying on some matter, and 
had said that at the period in question, he, Jackson, had had 
no intercourse with Mr. Adams. Mr. Adams had searched 
his files and found a misspelt acceptance of a dinner invita- 
tion from Jackson at the time referred to, with a list of the 
guests on the back. He began his speech by advising young 
men to preserve their papers, 'for some day they might be 
assailed by the tongue of slander,' and then he told the story 



STARTING IN LIFE : 1873-1 SSO 273 

and produced Jackson's note. Dr. Ellis said that word 
'slander' rang in his ears to this day. It sounded like the 
crack of a whip, it was so sharp, clear, and stinging, the old 
man pointing Ins forefinger in a way greatly to emphasize 
his words." 

It is interesting to read in this connection Mr. Adams's 
own account of this speech, recorded in his diary for Novem- 
ber 20, 1844: "Mr. Luther Bradish, late Lieutenant Gov- 
ernor of New York, toasted me — or roasted me — with a 
speech so fulsome that it overset all my philosophy, and I 
stammered a reply; the only palliation was its brevity." I 
wish that I had noted down more of the interesting anec- 
dotes I heard from Dr. Ellis, for he told them well and had 
an inexhaustible memory, but this is the only one of which 
I find any record. 

I was also elected at this time a member of the Wednesday 
Evening Club, an institution more than a century old, to 
which many of our Boston worthies in successive generations 
have belonged. During the whole of its long existence it 
had met every Wednesday evening in the winter at the 
house of each member in turn. The club had one singular 
merit— it had no serious purpose. Talk and a supper con- 
stituted the entire proceedings. Then a very young man, 
I found myself the companion of Mr. Charles Francis Adams, 
the elder, Mr. Robert C. Winthrop, Dr. S. K. Lothrop, pas- 
tor emeritus of my old church in Brattle Street, Mr. Jef- 
ferson Coolidge, Mr. Augustus Lowell, Mr. Charles Dalton, 
and others whom it was a great pleasure to be associated 
with in that way. I recall one evening at my own house 
when I had at supper various old Madeiras which had come 
to me from my great-grandfather and grandfather, who had 
possessed a very fine assortment of vintages of that wine, 
so much prized at the beginning of the nineteenth century. 
Among others was one celebrated in its day called "Essex 



274 EARLY MEMORIES 

Junior," from the famous ship, and of the vintage of 1812. 
Very little of it I think was left. My mind being full just 
then of the Federalists and their history, including especially 
the "Essex Junto" and their quarrels with John and John 
Quincy Adams, I poured out a glass and said to Mr. Adams: 
"Here is some 'Essex Junior/ a good old Federalist wine, 
and you know their wine was as sound as their principles." 
Mr. Adams smiled, and taking the glass said: "Their wine 
was always fine and sound. I will say nothing of their 
principles." 

Two years after my election to the Historical Society I 
was chosen a member of the American Academy of Arts and 
Sciences. I appreciated the honor, but never went to the 
meetings, which were wholly occupied with scientific ques- 
tions of which I was and have remained painfully ignorant. 

The club which I most enjoyed, however, was a small 
dining club formed by some of my friends and myself, and 
which long since disappeared as the members grew older 
and became scattered or were carried off by death. It was 
called the Porcupine Club, and chose as its motto the Ho- 
ratian line : " Populus me sibilat, at mini plaudo." We were 
not lacking in youthful conceit, as the choice of a motto 
indicates, but it was a very delightful club none the less. 
We were all about the same age, young, active, ambitious, 
interested in law and politics and literature, and ready to 
argue about any conceivable subject. Among the members 
were Lucius Sargent, Russell Gray and Sturgis Bigelow, who 
had been my schoolmates and companions from childhood; 
Brooks Adams, youngest of the sons of Charles Francis 
Adams, whom I knew in college and with whom I became 
veiy intimate; and Howard Stockton, of the old New Jer- 
sey family, who had been in the regular army but who had 
resigned, married, and settled down in Boston as a lawyer. 
These were the members with whom I was most intimate, and 



STARTING IN LIFE : 1873-1880 275 

I was greatly attached to them all. They were all Clevel- 
and interesting men. Lucius Sargent, handsome, fascina- 
ting, my inseparable companion in riding and hunting, most 
loyal of friends, died in the prime of his manhood from 
injuries incurred by a fall in the hunting field. The others 
have been my close friends through life. With Brooks 
Adams and Russell Gray I read and studied Shakespeare; 
with the latter I kept up my Latin and Greek, losing the 
last, alas, as I was drawn into the active work of politics. 
But then we all had much the same pursuits. I was chosen 
one of the trustees of the Boston Athenaeum, the great pro- 
prietary library of Boston; Stockton and Gray soon joined 
me, and as members of the library committee we had much 
enjoyment in the management of an institution which ap- 
pealed strongly to our tastes for books. 



CHAPTER XII 

PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 

I have tried thus far, as I have already said, to give a 
mere outline of the occupations of these formative years, 
and of the associations and clubs to which I belonged, in 
order to open the way for some account of the men I came 
to know who were distinguished in public life or in literature, 
and who are of infinitely more interest than anything which 
concerned me. I came upon the stage of life just as the 
remarkable group of men who had made New England and 
Boston famous in the middle of the nineteenth century were 
passing off. They included both those who had led Massa- 
chusetts in the great struggle which had preceded the Civil 
War, and those who had made her fame in literature. 

Let me begin with Charles Sumner, of whom I have 
already spoken, and who is inseparably connected with all 
the memories of my childhood and youth. Long before he 
entered public life he was a friend of my grandfather and 
grandmother Cabot, and was constantly at their house. 
This friendship was extended to my father and mother, and 
after Mr. Sumner became senator my father was one of his 
most ardent supporters. When Sumner by his speeches 
against slavery had alienated respectable and conservative 
Boston, when all the Webster Whigs, the "Silver Greys," 
and the cotton manufacturers, when business and society 
alike turned against him, he was practically ostracized, and 
the people among whom he had always lived closed their 

276 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 277 

doors to him. Henry Adams told me long afterwards that 
his father's house and my father's house were the only ones 
in Boston at that time, so far as he knew, which remained 
open to Sumner. The intimacy therefore was peculiarly 
close. Whenever Sumner was in Boston he dined constantly 
with us, and every summer he passed six weeks or more at 
Nahant, dividing his vacation between us and Mr. Long- 
fellow, who was one of his best and most faithful friends. 
He is therefore to me almost one of the family, as I look 
back on my early years, and he continued to me the in- 
herited friendship. After my father's death he came to 
the house and stayed with us just as before, and when my 
sister and I had separate houses he divided his time between 
us. I wrote to ask him to come to me as usual the summer 
after I returned from Europe, and I give his reply because 
it shows the affectionate side of Sumner's character, of 
which I think the world knew little. 

Washington — 

12th April 73 

MY DEAR CABOT 

I recognize in your note the friendship of yr father and grand- 
father, renewed in another generation. It makes me feel that I 
am not entirely alone in the world. 

Thanks! dear Cabot, you touch my heart. I am very feeble; 
but I hope to reach Nahant & to enjoy the hospitality you so kindly 
offer. 

Thanks also to yr charming wife and to yr mother too. 

Ever sincerely 
Yrs 

Charles Sumner 

As a child I looked at him with awe and wonder, with a 
vague idea that he was a great man, although I did not very 
well know the reason. But I was never afraid of him, for he 
was always kindness itself to me, and was wont to ask me 



278 EARLY MEMORIES 

in his solemn way about my school and the books I studied, 
of which he knew a great deal, and he would also make 
serious inquiries, as I think he felt bound in duty to do, 
about my sports and amusements, of which he knew very 
little. It was not, however, the misty idea that he was a 
great man which alone made Sumner impressive to my boy- 
ish imagination. He was a most imposing figure. Tall, 
large, not regularly handsome in features, but with a noble 
head and a fine, intellectual face, no one could look upon 
him and fail to be struck and attracted by his looks and 
presence. To all this was added that rarest of gifts, a very 
fine voice, deep and rich, with varied tones, and always a 
delight to the ear. If ever a man was physically formed — 

"The applause of listening Senates to command," 

it was Charles Sumner. 

He was a man of wide learning. He had read every- 
thing, was familiar with all the great languages, ancient 
and modern, had the power of devouring books with ex- 
traordinary rapidity, and the much more precious gift of 
remembering everything he read, whether important or un- 
important. He always reminded me of Macaulay in the 
extent of his acquirements and in the way in which upon 
any subject which was started he could give all the facts and 
dates, deluge the conversation with precedents and parallel 
cases, and recite long lists of names if opportunity offered. 
He was nearly contemporary with Macaulay, and I have 
sometimes wondered whether these attributes of indis- 
criminate learning, relentless memory, and readiness in 
pouring out vast stores of knowledge were not, in a greater 
or lesser degree, characteristic of the period. Sumner did 
not monopolize the conversation, as Macaulay is said to 
have done, nor reduce it to a monologue, nor would any one 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 279 

have said of him, as Sydney Smith said of Macaulay, that 
he had "flashes of silence." Sumner was often silent, en- 
tirely ready to listen to others, and never burdensome in 
conversation. He talked well, and if he sometimes talked 
at length, I always found him interesting, which is, I think, 
a good test, for a young man is easily bored. In another way 
Sumner's learning and memory were less fortunate so far as 
he was personally concerned. They led him very naturally 
to elaborate and lengthen his speeches, not at all for display, 
but merely because it was easy and agreeable to expand, 
and he could not resist the temptation. The result was that 
he has never, as it seems to me, obtained the recognition 
as a speaker and debater to which his presence, his deliv- 
ery, his beautiful voice, his accomplishments, and his good 
English entitled him. Those who heard him were too often 
weighed down by the mass and quantity of his utterances; 
while his published speeches not only remain, like most 
other speeches, unread, but they have not, I think, received 
in history the attention which their importance and their 
quality alike warrant and justify. He would have been 
saved from all this if he had possessed a sense of humor, 
and yet had he been gifted with much humor it is possible 
that he would not have accomplished the noble work or 
played the great part which fell to him in those momentous 
years of the antislavery struggle and the Civil War. The 
absence of a keen sense of humor was probably the defect 
of his qualities and his virtues, but there can be no doubt 
of the fact of its absence. I do not mean to suggest that 
he was morose or solemn, or that he frowned on mirth. 
Quite the contrary was the case. He was always genial 
and kindly, and liked to see others, especially young people, 
enjoy themselves; but his sense of humor in the broad and 
true sense of the word was defective. It was this deficiency 
which made him unable sometimes to realize the effect of 



280 EARLY MEMORIES 

his own words. Mr. Schurz told me, I remember, of an 
incident which perfectly illustrates this point. It was at 
the time of their quarrel with Grant. Sumner was prepar- 
ing to make a speech in the Senate upon some phase of the 
administration policy. Mr. Schurz talked the speech over 
with Sumner and begged him not to indulge in any bitter 
attacks upon the President, and urged him to be temperate 
in his language, as violence would do more harm than good. 
Sumner agreed with him, and promised to be very careful. 
When he spoke, Schurz was horrified to find as the speech 
proceeded that Sumner had apparently utterly forgotten 
his promise. He launched out into the invective of which 
he was a master, and denounced Grant bitterly and savagely. 
When he had concluded, he turned to Schurz and said: 
"You saw I was very moderate and temperate, and I hope 
you think that I was wise not to be more severe." Schurz 
said that after this remark he saw how useless it was to 
expostulate, because Sumner evidently could not perceive 
the force of his own words. His observation about his own 
moderation was made in perfectly good faith, and disclosed, 
of course, a rather alarming lack of humor. This came out 
amusingly in much less important ways. Mr. Longfellow, 
who was always devoted to Sumner, but at the same time 
entirely conscious of his deficiency in humor, told me that 
when the "Biglow Papers" were published Sumner was 
staying at his house. It was a rainy afternoon, and Mr. 
Longfellow was obliged to go out, leaving Sumner stretched 
on the sofa reading Lowell's volume. When he returned, he 
asked Sumner how he liked the poems, and Sumner replied: 
"They are admirable, very good indeed; but why does he 
spell his words so badly?" Mr. Longfellow attempted to 
explain that the poems were purposely written in the New 
England dialect, but Sumner could not understand. 

One summer at Nahant I dined at Mr. Longfellow's 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 281 

with Sumner and some others. Sumner was a collector of 
china, about which he knew a great deal, as he did about 
many other things. He told us a stoiy of his going to see 
Lord Exmouth's collection and how fine it was. When he 
was taking his leave Lord Exmouth gave Mm two rare plates 
and offered to send them to his lodgings, but Sumner would 
not be parted from his prize and insisted on taking them 
home with him in his cab. When he had concluded his 
story, which was interesting but long in narration, "Tom" 
Appleton, Mr. Longfellow's brother-in-law, who was present, 
said: "A pleasing tale illustrated with two plates." Every- 
body laughed, and Sumner, looking about most good-na- 
turedly, said: "What are you all laughing at? I suppose 
Appleton is up to some mischief, but my story is quite true." 

Yet, although Sumner lacked humor, he could say good 
things himself, which, if not humorous, had both keenness 
and wit. He was staying at our house shortly after the fall 
of the second empire and the establishment of the French 
republic. He had just returned from Paris, where Gam- 
betta had called upon him, and he gave us a most interesting 
account of their conversation, in which Gambetta had dis- 
cussed the whole situation and had asked Sumner's counsel 
and advice. He said: "Gambetta rose to go and as he 
took my hand he said: 'Ah, M. Sumner il nous faut un 
Jefferson!' I replied: 'Trouvez un Washington, M. Gam- 
betta, et un Jefferson arrivera.' " Nothing could have been 
better. 

In the same way, although he was capable of being so 
bitter in denunciation and would use language of the most 
savage kind about opponents or about those who had 
wronged him without in the least realizing the wounding 
force of his words, no man had better manners in daily life, 
manners at once kindly, stately, and dignified, and he could 
do a courteous action in the most graceful way. A little 



282 EARLY MEMORIES 

incident connected with Mr. Motley's appointment as min- 
ister to England illustrates this quality in Sumner very well. 
It was known that Mr. Motley's name was being consid- 
ered by the President, but there were other aspirants and 
the usual speculation and uncertainty were rife. At last 
the President told Sumner that he would appoint Motley. 
That same evening Motley dined with Sumner. There was 
a large party, and although there was conversation about the 
English mission no one had any idea that the question had 
been settled. When the dinner had ended and the cloth 
was removed Sumner raised his glass and, looking at Mr. 
Motley, said in the quietest, most matter-of-fact way: 
"When does your Excellency intend to sail for Eng- 
land?" 

Coupled with his deficiency in a sense of humor and 
akin to it was a curious simplicity of nature. He was not 
in the least arrogant, to my thinking, although I have heard 
arrogance charged against him. He was anything but con- 
ceited, but he had vanity — "the most philosophical of those 
feelings we are taught to despise," as Mr. Justice Holmes 
has said — in a marked degree. So complete were his credu- 
lity and simplicity in this respect that designing men could 
easily take advantage of him. It was not the vanity which 
offends, for it was too frank, too obvious, too innocent to 
give offence, but it made him an easy prey to those who 
wished to profit by it. When in Washington I always dined 
with Sumner, and on one occasion Caleb Cushing and John 
W. Forney were both there; I think he always had some one 
at his hospitable table, as he disliked being alone. I remem- 
ber my surprise at seeing Caleb Cushing. In our Free Soil, 
Republican household his name was anathema as a pro- 
slaverv Massachusetts Democrat who had sold himself to 
the South for a cabinet office. I knew nothing of his career. 
I only had the vague notion, acquired in childhood, that he 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 283 

was one of the wicked, and it never occurred to me that it 
was possible for me to meet him in any house to which I 
should be invited, least of all in Sumner's. I was therefore 
surprised to find a well-bred man, with a keen, intellectual 
face, who made himself most agreeable. It was really quite 
natural that he should have been at Sumner's, for his last 
gyration had brought him to a strong support of the Union 
cause, of which I, as a boy, had been profoundly ignorant. 
I recall nothing of his conversation except that it was inter- 
esting and tinged with a certain cool cynicism which I now 
know was characteristic of the man. One thing, and only 
one, that he said has clung to my memory. The talk turned 
upon Grant, who had just been elected, and was a warm 
friend of the former attorney-general. Cushing said: 
"When the War broke out I remarked to a friend that I 
wished I could pick out the subaltern in the Army who 
would be the next President of the United States and now 
here he is." 

The other guest, Forney, was very different. He de- 
voted himself to deluging his host with gross flattery, which 
the subject of the eulogy received smilingly and without 
deprecation. I had been brought up in an atmosphere 
charged with affection and admiration for Sumner, but this 
sort of adulation I had never heard, and I sat by in silent 
amazement, wondering greatly, feeling uncomfortable, and 
sympathizing with Sumner, who, I thought, must feel un- 
comfortable too, a belief in which I was quite mistaken. 
Forney knew quite well what he was about, and had defi- 
nite, practical purposes to serve. Whether the stories then 
current were true or not, there is no doubt that intimacy 
with Sumner was valuable to Forney, and he held his friend- 
ship with him by a flattery which only a nature of the 
utmost simplicity and vanity could have accepted without 
suspicion or revolt. I saw another instance of the same 



284 EARLY MEMORIES 

weakness with a man who had no private end to serve. 
On several occasions when Sumner dined at our house in 
Boston my mother asked Wendell Phillips and no one else 
to meet him. Wendell Phillips was a most delightful man 
in private life and at a family dinner of the kind to which 
I refer. But I was amazed at the way in which he seemed 
to flatter Sumner, and still more, as in the case of Forney, 
at the manner in which Sumner accepted it with a pleased 
smile and without a murmur of dissent. Phillips, as I 
thought at the time, did this either because he liked to 
please Sumner, or possibly with an underlying love of mis- 
chief, of which he was entirely capable, and which afforded 
him a certain cynical enjoyment by the exhibition of a 
human and harmless weakness. I have since come to the 
conclusion that what Phillips said was not only genuine, 
but that he did it because he knew how much it would 
gratify the recipient of his praise. For Sumner Phillips had 
a very real affection and one which I think never wavered. 
Among many notes from Phillips to my mother I select two 
which show his love for Sumner in a way which puts any sus- 
picion of mere flattery or of a mischievous wish to show 
Sumner's simplicity of nature out of the range of possibili- 
ties. 

DEAR MRS LODGE 

Having told you one incident of Arch & the workingmen's 
visit to Sumner, it is but fair to them to add another, which he 
will never tell you, but I think it gave him a moment's pleasure. 

Arch had been insisting on the evils England suffered from the 
long tenure of office, hereditary &c Sumner was answering, 
"Well, Sir, we cure that here. If a Governor misbehaves we 
leave him out next year; if a Representative votes wrong, we let 
him stay at home next winter. We only trust men a year at a 
time." ' 

Of course the whole crowd were listening in silence. — And as 
he paused one of the workingmen broke in — "Yes, Mr Arch, we 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 285 

only elect one Senator for life." All applauded and Charles ac- 
knowledged it with a smile. A graceful compliment was not it? 
— and deserved. 

Yrs 
7 Nov — 73 Wendell Phillips 

MY DEAR MRS LODGE — 

You are very kind to remember me and offer me a share in so 
pleasant a meeting. I shall certainly be with you and we can 
exchange congratulations that our old commonwealth honors her- 
self so much by this flood-tide of admiring pride in her oldest 
public servant and honestest. 

He must surely be touched by this evidence of public confi- 
dence and loving interest. It will strengthen him for a brave 
winter in Washington. 

No matter that you forgot the place where I live, since you've 
never forgot the place where any hard duty called you, 

Very sincerely 

Yrs 
50 Essex St. Wendell Phillips 

20 Nov.— 

I have thus far spoken chiefly of Sumner's foibles be- 
cause it would be impossible to understand him or know 
him without realizing them. But these peculiarities which 
I have described, although used against him by his enemies, 
were only foibles and nothing more. They did not really 
affect the essential greatness of the man. Sumner was a 
great man and did a great work throughout the stormy 
times in which he lived. Justice in many instances has not 
been done to him, and even among those who have praised 
him he has not always been rightly praised, because both 
the praise and the blame have been awarded on what seems 
to me a mistaken view of his life and work. A man should 
be judged and criticised for what he was, not because he was 
not something else or because he failed to be what he was 
not and never tried to be. 



286 EARLY MEMORIES 

Sumner by nature was a dreamer, a man of meditation, 
a man of books, and a lover of learning. By the circum- 
stances of his time and by the hand of fate he was projected 
into a career of intense action and fierce struggle. There 
he played a great part, but his nature was not changed. 
He still remained at bottom a dreamer and a man of books. 
Everything which interested him, whether great or small, he 
approached from the precincts and with the habits of the 
library and in the manner of a deep, delving student. I have 
spoken of his love for china and porcelains. He was fond 
of them, and had made quite a collection not only of exam- 
ples of European manufacture, but of Chinese and Japanese 
work, at that period little understood or appreciated. Yet 
this interest which to most persons is merely a taste or an 
amusement was to Sumner a subject of research and study. 
How good his judgment was I cannot undertake to say, but 
he had mastered all the learning and read all the books on 
the subject, and could talk about the history and processes 
of manufacture and the famous makers of pottery or por- 
celain by the hour together. As a matter of course, Sumner 
had a good library and knew about books, but he also be- 
came interested in bindings, and I remember hearing him 
on more than one occasion discourse about bindings and 
celebrated binders in a manner which would lead a casual 
listener to think that bookbinding had been the study and 
occupation of his life. It was the same in regard to pictures, 
architecture, and sculpture, all subjects in which he was in- 
terested. It was inevitable that he should carry the same 
habits and propensities into the serious work of his life, and 
that whenever he made a speech on any subject his learning 
should flow out copiously upon every topic. Tins led, as 
I have already said, to his overloading his speeches when 
he should have used the stores of his reading and memory 
with extreme reserve, and solely for illustration or decora- 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 287 

tion. His wide and accurate historical knowledge as well 
as his legal training fitted him peculiarly for the treatment 
of international questions, and the important position of 
chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, 
which he held so long, attained to greater authority in his 
hands than in those of any other of the many able men 
who have occupied the same place. The work of that 
committee was not only agreeable to Sumner, but was pe- 
culiarly suited to him, and he was one of the guiding forces 
in our foreign policy during the trying and difficult years of 
the Civil War. He was intense in his Americanism, and all 
the quite unequalled attention which he had received abroad, 
especially in England, never affected him in the slightest 
degree where the interests of his own country were con- 
cerned. He was severely criticised for his extravagant ad- 
vocacy of the untenable Indirect Claims, which came so 
near to wrecking the Geneva Arbitration. But I have al- 
ways thought that Sumner's deliberate purpose was to 
break up the arbitration, because he did not believe that it 
was the wise course for the United States to take. Sumner 
felt deeply the conduct of England during our Civil War. 
The very fact of his many friendships in England made his 
resentment all the keener. When the war closed it seemed 
to him that the time had come for a final settlement, and 
that settlement to him meant the acquisition of Canada. 
Mr. Charles Francis Adams has shown recently how near 
we were to this solution, for at that period England had 
none of the feeling about her colonies which she has to-day. 
The statesmen of the extreme Free Trade school were in the 
ascendant, and the general feeling was one of indifference 
to the colonies, coupled with a readiness to let them go if 
they so desired. Sumner's policy was to refuse all arbitra- 
tion with England as to the "Alabama" depredations and 
the injuries she had inflicted upon us and to take Canada 



288 EARLY MEMORIES 

as an indemnity, thereby closing the door to all future diffi- 
culties with Great Britain. He believed the transfer would 
be peaceable, but with the greatest army of tried and vet- 
eran soldiers then existent, and an equally powerful navy, 
he was quite prepared for a war which could have had but 
one issue. The policy was feasible, and if we had taken 
Canada at that time, many questions would have been 
laid to rest forever. We accepted arbitration, an apology, 
and fifteen millions of money. Perhaps it was the wisest 
as it was certainly the safest course, but Sumner's policy 
was none the less strong, intelligent, far-seeing, and final. 
In regard to Cuba, when the insurrection broke out which 
culminated in the affair of the "Virginius," Sumner declared 
the presence of Spain in the Western Hemisphere to be an 
anachronism. He did not press for active measures against 
Spain, because there were still slaves in Cuba, and that 
chilled his sympathy. But he saw the true situation before 
others had grasped it, and declared that what was done 
thirty years later was inevitable and ought to come to pass. 
He was a generation ahead of his time in his views of our 
relations to Spain, and of the necessary result which was 
bound to come because Spanish rule was an anachronism 
in America. 

It was the same in regard to the treatment of the South 
when the war closed. Sumner believed that the true course 
was to divide the States lately in rebellion into military dis- 
tricts, without regard to State lines, and give them for a 
time a purely military government. This opinion came from 
no fanatical hatred of the South, for Sumner was the most 
generous of victors, and was censured by the Massachusetts 
Legislature for proposing to erase from the battle-flags of 
the United States the names of Union victories, because he 
believed in removing all outward signs of the triumph of 
one American over another. Again he was ahead of his 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 289 

time, and his plan for temporary military government arose 
from his belief that it would be best in the end for all con- 
cerned. The only real alternative to Sumner's policy was 
to let the Southern States come back as if nothing had hap- 
pened. For this high trust the South at the moment showed 
itself unfit, because the Legislatures seemed to have learned 
nothing, and began at once by the device of peonage laws 
to thrust the negro back into practical slavery. On the 
other hand, the North thought military government too 
extreme and too much at variance with American principles. 
The result was that neither the one plan nor the other was 
adopted, and so we had reconstruction based on negro rule 
with all its failures and miseries. Sumner's policy would 
have spared the country all this, and it would have been bet- 
ter for the South, which would have infinitely preferred the 
government of the army to that which we forced upon them. 
Sumner was a statesman in the largest sense, although 
not a legislator who drafted laws and attended to legislative 
details. Still less was he a politician, for he cared nothing 
for politics, in the ordinary acceptation of the word. Yet 
it is not upon his statesmanship or upon his power as an 
orator that his fame depends. Sumner's greatness rests 
securely on the fact that he was the representative of an 
idea. He stood for human freedom. He was among the 
first of those who have been well called the human rights 
statesmen of that period. He was one of the great leaders 
among the men of 1848 when the movement for political 
liberty swept over the world of Western civilization, and 
when it was believed that in political liberty, manhood suf- 
frage, and republican government, whether in Italy or 
Austria, in France or Germany, or among the negroes of the 
South, would be found a cure for all the ills and miseries of 
mankind. It was a noble faith, its champions did a great 
work for humanity. Their success did not bring a panacea 



290 EARLY MEMORIES 

for all the ills that flesh is heir to, for, alas, there is none, 
but they made the lot of mankind better, and rendered an 
inestimable service to their fellow men. Sumner was one 
of the greatest among them in his devotion to the cause. 
Not only by what he said, but by what he suffered, and, 
above all, by what he was in character and attainments, 
was he enabled to strike the most deadly blows at slavery 
ever dealt up to that time in Congress. He had the spirit 
of the martyr and the crusader. He was entirely fearless. 
He never would compromise, retreat, or flinch. He was 
just the man needed in the conflict which culminated in 
the ten years preceding the Civil War, and during that 
period he fills a large place. 

As I saw him he was a lovable man. He was kindness 
itself, gentle and affectionate in our household, of which he 
was so often a part. But as I look back on that vanished 
time I see now, that which I vaguely felt then, what a pa- 
thetic, almost tragic, figure he was. He was singularly 
lonely. He had no near relations after the death of his 
brother George. His marriage proved most unhappy, and 
led to separation and renewed isolation. He never fully 
recovered from the Brooks assault, and the disease of the 
heart, which finally caused his death, produced acute suf- 
fering. Yet he never murmured. He bore his loneliness 
and physical pain alike in silence and with a smiling face. 
He had high moral courage, and never cried out under the 
blows of fate. His career is part, and a large part, of the 
history of his time. I have no thought of rewriting it 
here in these rambling recollections, but I wish to give 
the impression which was left to me by close association 
with a remarkable man in the days of childhood and youth, 
and of whom I had that nearer view which sometimes 
brings a better understanding than official records or the 
researches of the historians. 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 291 

There were no others of the antislavery leaders, the 
"human rights" statesmen who came into control of Massa- 
chusetts politics during the fifties, and who played a large 
part in the history of the United States, whom I knew and 
saw closely, as was the case with Sumner. Henry Wilson, 
Sumner's colleague, was little more than a name to me until 
I met him in Washington when he was vice-president, and 
shortly before his death. I there had a long talk with him. 
He knew about me and about the friendship of my family 
with Sumner, and he was most kind and pleasant. I noted 
in a diaiy the fact of my talk with him, but made no record 
of the conversation, which has now entirely escaped my 
memory. I remember very well, however, just how he 
looked : large, fair, with a florid complexion, a pleasant voice, 
and agreeable manner. He was a man of remarkable quali- 
ties, for he had worked his way up from as low a starting- 
point as it is possible to conceive. It was said that he was 
the son of English gypsies, and that his name was really 
Coldbath, but he had no trace of the gypsy look, and prob- 
ably came from one of those families of English stock who 
are confused with the true Romany merely because they 
lead a wandering gypsy life. However this may be, he was 
born in the utmost obscurity and poverty. He had no 
chance for any schooling, and no friends to help him. He 
learned the trade of shoemaker, made his own living, edu- 
cated himself, entered politics, rose to be one of the leaders 
of the Republican party in Massachusetts, then became 
senator, and died vice-president of the United States. He 
was not only able to hold his own in the great positions he 
filled, but, so far as I could see, there was no trace of rough- 
ness about him or of that almost ferocious self-assertion 
which is so apt to appear in men who have fought their 
way from humble beginnings and through great difficulties 
up to success. He was dignified and simple in manner, and 



292 EARLY MEMORIES 

there was nothing to suggest to any one who saw him as I 
did that he was not to the manner born. 

Governor Andrew I never really knew, although as a 
child I saw him at his home. I knew his family well, and his 
son, who died comparatively young, was a close friend of 
mine for many years. We served together in the Legislature 
and in Congress, and although we parted politically in 1884, 
our friendship was never in the slightest degree interrupted. 
He was very quick and clever, a delightful companion, a 
loyal friend, but he did not possess his father's unusual force, 
his depth of feeling, or his remarkable ability. I never, as 
I have just said, really knew the governor, for he died 
while I was still a boy, soon after the war, worn out by his 
labors during those terrible years. Yet Governor Andrew 
remains in my memory as one of the most vivid figures of my 
early days, just as he was one of the commanding figures of 
the time, a great war governor, a pillar of support to Lin- 
coln and the Union cause. I see him now far more clearly 
than many persons whom I knew much better. My vision 
of him is always as he stood reviewing the troops when 
they marched past the State House, and I used to look after 
him, when I passed him in the street, with wondering eyes. 
To me, who had never been beyond the bounds of Boston 
and its neighborhood, he seemed the incarnation of the gov- 
ernment, of freedom, and of the Union. A short, heavily 
built, squarely solid figure, as I described him in an earlier 
chapter, with a large head covered with tight-curling light 
hair, a smooth round face, and inseparable spectacles, he 
was not physically the type of man who would by his looks 
appeal to a boy's imagination as a hero. Yet to me he 
was unquestionably heroic. I cannot recall a word that he 
uttered when, a small unit in the crowd, I heard him speak. 
I was moved because eveiybody about him was moved by 
what he said, and the contagion of a crowd is veiy powerful. 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 293 

Still, the fact of the impression remained, and I now explain 
it by the man's real greatness, by his sincerity of soul, and, 
above all, by his emotional force, which carried his audi- 
ences away and which struck so deep into my boyish im- 
agination that his image has never been effaced, or even 
dimmed. 

Dr. S. G. Howe was another of the antislavery lead- 
ers whom I cannot be said to have known, but who stands 
out sharply in my memory. Both he and Mrs. Howe were 
friends of my mother, to whom as a young girl Dr. Howe's 
expedition to Greece and his part in the war of liberation 
made him appear, as indeed he was, a romantic hero, with 
the temper and courage of a crusading knight. I think I 
saw him first when I was fourteen years old and went to a 
picnic at the Howes' place near Newport. I looked at him 
with eager curiosity, for I had not only heard of his exploits 
and wild adventures in behalf of Greek liberty, but the 
story of Laura Bridgman was familiar to me, and I had 
always wanted to see the man who had worked such wonders. 
Dr. Howe, as so seldom happens, fully satisfied my imagina- 
tion. He was a most striking-looking man, hawk-eyed, 
hawk-nosed, with the expression of wild daring which I ex- 
pected. The Laura Bridgman side was not apparent to a 
small boy staring at the hero of many adventures. Yet 
that was really the dominant side, for if ever a man lived 
who, without a thought of self, devoted his life to helping 
his fellow men — the poor, the deformed, the crippled in 
rnind and body, all the heavy-laden of our struggling human- 
ity — it was Dr. Howe. That such a man should cast him- 
self into the movement to free the slaves was inevitable. 
He had no love for politics, but he fought the battle of the 
slaves politically and in every other way, on the plains of 
Kansas and in the streets of Boston. He was one of Sum- 
ner's closest and most devoted friends, a friend who never 



294 EARLY MEMORIES 

flattered and was all the more valuable to Sumner on that 
account. 

Anson Burlingame I never knew, and I do not think that 
I ever saw him in those early days. Yet my impression of 
him as I recall those times is very vivid, merely because I 
heard him talked about so constantly. He was one of the 
heroes of the household in the days of the antislavery strug- 
gle, and my father, who was one of his constituents, had a 
very great admiration for him, not only on account of his 
brilliancy in speech and debate, but for his fearlessness and 
readiness to fight if need be. He dwells in the memory of 
my first ten years as one of the champions of the good cause 
to whom we all owed a most especial allegiance. 

Of Wendell Phillips I saw much more, as it happened, 
after I grew up. He cannot be said to have belonged to the 
group of human-rights statesmen who took possession of the 
stage when I was a child, and held it for many years after- 
wards, for he was not a statesman and never acted long in 
harmony with anybody. Brought up in a free-soil Repub- 
lican household, I had imbibed the notion that Phillips was 
an agitator who injured the good cause by his extrava- 
gances. His assaults on the Union of States, his denuncia- 
tion of the Constitution, and his attacks upon Lincoln all 
combined to foster this idea. Later, as I began to think for 
myself, these early impressions were strengthened by Phil- 
lips's support of Butler and Butler's appointments in Massa- 
chusetts, by his zeal for the negro governments of the South, 
by his praise of assassination in the case of the Czar in his 
Phi Beta Kappa speech, and by his reckless diatribes against 
everybody who crossed his path. He was in truth an Ish- 
mael, and his hand was against every man's. When Judge 
Hoar, on being asked if he was going to Phillips's funeral, 
replied, "No, I cannot go, but I approve of the proceedings 
entirely," he expressed by his jest the general feeling in 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 295 

Boston about Phillips. Yet when I came to know him, 
although I did not alter my opinion of him as a public 
man, I could not help being attracted by him personally. 
He was tall, singularly high-bred, and distinguished-looking, 
handsome, and with the most beautiful voice I ever heard. 
The well-known anecdote of Lord Morpeth and Mr. Ticknor 
gives the best idea of the way Phillips appeared so far as 
mere exterior went. Lord Morpeth was in this country in 
1842. In Boston he stayed with Mr. Ticknor, the historian 
of Spanish literature, who had travelled much, making it 
his business to see eveiy one of note, and who naturally 
took charge of most of the distinguished foreigners who 
visited his native city. Lord Morpeth, standing one day 
at the window of Mr. Ticknor's house in Park Street, said: 
"Who are those two men walking together? They are the 
most aristocratic, the most distinguished-looking men I have 
seen in America." Mr. Ticknor looked out and replied: 
"Those men are Edmund Quincy and Wendell Phillips, 
two abolitionists and agitators, violent, dangerous persons." 
Mr. Ticknor was a conservative, a friend of Webster, a 
"cotton" or "Hunker" Whig, as they were afterwards 
called, and Lord Morpeth's comment on Quincy and Phil- 
lips was not to him a sympathetic observation. Yet the 
two agitators were entitled to their looks if birth, good 
family, and generations of education and refinement meant 
anything. By Mr. Ticknor they were regarded much as an 
anarchist of the extreme type is regarded now, and he could 
not see them in any other light. I was too young to have 
known Mr. Ticknor, but I remember as a boy seeing him 
constantly, walking slowly in the sunshine on winter days 
along Beacon Street, where we then lived, not far from his 
house. He was short, looked like the typical elderly Eng- 
lishman of the Palmerstonian period, had a rather stern 
expression, and an air of conscious importance. He was a 



296 EARLY MEMORIES 

man of learning and of real scholarship, especially in his 
own domain of Spanish literature, and did most admirable 
work in that field. But he was, I imagine, a somewhat 
conceited man, and these qualities, together with his polit- 
ical attitude in the years of the war and those preceding 
it, had made him unpopular. 

But I have drifted away from Phillips. Through our 
common descent from John Walley, the provincial lieutenant- 
general of the time of William of Orange, my father, to 
whom Phillips's fearlessness strongly appealed, had always 
kept up relations with him. My mother had, of course, 
known him from her girlhood, and despite his many violences 
and bitter attacks had, I think, retained not only a lasting 
admiration for his early services to the antislavery cause 
in the dark days when few people dared to say a word on 
that subject, but a real affection for the man himself. In 
any event, he used to dine with us now and then, especially 
when Sumner was at the house, and it is on those occasions 
that I remember him. I can see him now sitting at the 
dinner-table with his attractive smile and turning down all 
his wine-glasses to show his support of total abstinence and 
State prohibition of liquor-selling. He had a most charm- 
ing manner and was always agreeable and interesting, for 
he was a man of wide reading and talked well on many 
subjects. He cared nothing for accuracy — his many ene- 
mies said he cared nothing for truth — but this failing does 
not make conversation less amusing, however much it im- 
pairs its moral or statistical value. He would also say bit- 
ter and witty things about people whom he disliked, and 
they were many, but all in his quietest manner and in the 
most silvery tones of his beautiful voice. I remember very 
well how interesting he was once in discussing public speak- 
ing, of which it is needless to say he was a master, and of 
the rules to be observed in the practice of that difficult 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 297 

art. "Use the conversational tone as much as you can," 
he said; "in fact, no other if possible, for in that way the 
inflections are preserved which are all lost when a man shouts. 
Moreover, shouting and roaring often defeat themselves by 
mere noise and monotony. Making an audience hear de- 
pends on the pitch, not on the loudness of the voice. An- 
other great point overlooked by most speakers is the posi- 
tion of the head and the direction in which you send your 
voice. Most speakers drop the head a little and talk to 
the people seated in the middle of the hall, on the floor- 
level. Nobody hears them, or hears only very imperfectly, 
back of the middle of the audience. Always talk to the 
most remote man in the gallery. If you can make him 
hear, as you can with a proper pitch and clear enunciation, 
everybody between you and him will hear too." I had no 
thought at that time that I should ever make a public 
speech, but what Phillips said struck me very much. I 
always remembered the simple rules he laid down, and they 
have been of the utmost use to me in speaking at all times, 
and under all conditions. 

Another of the leaders of the Free-Soil movement whom 
I came to know in those years, and one of a veiy differ- 
ent type from the men I have already mentioned, was Mr. 
Charles Francis Adams. Through my intimacy with two 
of his sons, Henry, and Brooks, the youngest of the family 
who had been in college with me, and also as a member of 
the Historical Society and of the Wednesday Evening Club, 
I saw a good deal of him. He was not an easy man to know 
and was the reverse of expansive, but I watched him with 
interest and talked with him whenever I had a chance. 
He was a short, strongly built man with a very marked re- 
semblance to his father, John Quincy Adams, as well as the 
characteristic look of the family. His forehead was broad 
with abundant room behind it. His features were sharply 



298 EARLY MEMORIES 

cut, the eye keen, and the jaw — his most notable feature — 
large, square, and strong, giving an impression of a grip like 
a bulldog. His mouth corresponded to the jaw, not hand- 
some but of straight clear line, and, as Carlyle said of Web- 
ster's, "accurately closed." Altogether his head and face 
gave an unmistakable expression of intellectual power, iron 
will, and calm determination. The outward appearance 
told the truth. Mr. Adams had all these qualities in a high 
degree. He was popularly supposed to be hard and cold- 
blooded, and his political enemies made this charge in season 
and out of season. Superficially there was reason for the 
popular idea, but I am certain that he was neither cold- 
blooded nor hard. I know that he was a man of warm 
affections, and I think that he had a high temper, but he 
concealed the one and controlled the other. He was very 
reserved, and reserve and self-control, as is so often the 
case, were mistaken for hardness and coldness of disposi- 
tion. I met him abroad when he was in Europe on the 
Geneva Arbitration, and I saw him often in Boston after- 
wards. He was, as a rule, very taciturn, and joined but 
little in general conversation, but when I was fortunate 
enough to obtain an opportunity to talk with him I found 
him always as kind and pleasant as possible. He never, so 
far as I could see, talked about himself or his experiences 
or what he had done. His talk, always good, marked by 
entire independence of opinion and great lucidity both of 
thought and expression, was always impersonal, but none 
the less interesting, although it was somewhat remote and 
detached. I recall one little anecdote which he told me 
that interested me very much, for it was one of those stories 
which bring men of the past close and make them live again 
for a moment. Stuart painted a portrait of John Adams in 
extreme old age, when he was nearing his ninetieth year. 
It is a very fine portrait of the old man seated and leaning 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 299 

on his cane. Mr. Adams, a boy of nineteen, used to keep 
his grandfather company during the sittings and watch the 
painter at work. He said that Stuart, who was old, too, and 
near the end of his career, was physically feeble. Both his 
hands shook violently. From a quivering palette he would 
take his color, and with his brush shaking and trembling he 
would approach the picture. Mr. Adams said it looked as if 
he might dash the paint on anywhere, but the brush always 
touched the portrait, extraordinary as it seemed, in exactly 
the right spot and in precisely the right way. Despite his 
shaking hands and trembling fingers, the old artist never 
made a mistake. 

Mr. Adams left with me not only a feeling of affection 
and a memory of kindness, but the assurance that he was 
a very strong, very able, and veiy remarkable man. He 
was stanch, true, entirely fearless, and an American in every 
fibre, a patriot of the highest type of patriotism. He was 
as providential in his place as minister to England during 
our Civil War as Lincoln was in the White House. The 
heir and representative of a line of statesmen, thoroughly 
versed in history, diplomacy, and politics as very few men 
ever are, he met the public men of England on something 
more than an equality. He could not be awed or overrid- 
den ; he was as highly trained as the best of them, and much 
better informed. He was calm and quite incapable of blus- 
ter or violence, but when the right moment came he could 
strike harder than any one else and with all the pent-up 
force of the strong man who knows how to wait. I have 
always thought that he went through those four terrible 
years of unparalleled difficulty, trial, and danger without 
making a single mistake, and with the utmost degree of 
effectiveness. There could be no higher praise. 

I will venture to give two of his letters to me, because 
they not only are evidence of his kind-hearted readiness to 



300 EARLY MEMORIES 

encourage a very young man, but they are also characteristic 
and show some of the qualities I have tried to describe. 
The first relates to an article upon Alexander Hamilton, 
the second to my memoir of my great-grandfather, George 
Cabot. 

Quincy 25 July 1876 

DEAR MR. LODGE. 

In looking over the July number of the North American Re- 
view, I was very naturally attracted to your article as one in which 
I might take an interest; and on reading it I was not disappointed. 

You have taken up a difficult subject and have managed it 
with skill and good temper. You have also labored to be impartial 
in questions where your very natural bias might most reasonably 
lead you to take a side. In my opinion you have acquitted your- 
self with great credit. I shall be glad to see the Review often sup- 
plying equally instructive matter, in an equally dignified way. 

You will not understand by this that I always agree with you 
in your judgments. On the contrary, I should perhaps differ in 
your analysis of all three of the great men of whom you treat, but 
that would not in the least impair my appreciation of the value 
of your work. I am very glad to find the young men endeavoring 
to understand them historically and not in the spirit of old preju- 
dices handed down from generation to generation. In my youth- 
ful days the fashion was intense panegyric or else ferocious malev- 
olence. I think we have improved on them in this respect if not 
in many others. I trust the Review may continue to be favored 
as well as to be benefitted by such contributors. 

Very truly yours 

Charles Francis Adams 

Quincy 4 July, 1877. 

MY DEAR SIR 

Engrossed as I have been for some time in the final corrections 
of the press of my own work, I have not yet had the leisure neces- 
sary to peruse your's which you have been so kind as to send me. 
I thank you for remembering me, and I shall read it with the at- 
tention which I see it deserves. If not convinced by the argu- 
ment, or the conclusions, it is at any rate a consoling reflection 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 301 

that all the acerbity that infected the subject has passed away, and 
we may commit it to the same umpire which has passed upon 
human action from the days of Romulus and Pericles and Moses 
down to the last Napoleon and Sir Robert Peel. When I was 
entering into life I was disposed to mount a high horse and chal- 
lenge the world to disputation for prizes which now I would not 
cross this room to secure. 

Such are my reflections whilst listening to the cannon in Boston 
which remind me that we have a country about which with all 
it's short comings we can all agree still to esteem quite as well 
worth living in as in any other on the face of the globe. 

Very truly 

Charles Francis Adams. 

Another man, distinguished in public life during the 
trying years which preceded the Civil War, whom I came to 
know well at the time was Robert C. Winthrop. In politics 
he was the antipodes of the men I have thus far mentioned, 
and in the atmosphere of Free Soil and Republicanism 
which I had breathed I had gathered the vague idea that 
he was little better than a pro-slavery Democrat; that, like 
Webster, he had made the great refusal and had abandoned 
the cause of freedom and of the countiy. When I came to 
know him I changed my conception of him very materially, 
although I never thought he was right in the political course 
which he adopted. He was president of the Historical 
Society when I became a member, and I think that my elec- 
tion was largely due to him. He was nearly seventy when I 
first knew him, and seemed to me much older, for he ap- 
peared to cultivate an appearance of age, although he was 
really strong and active and lived to be over eighty. To me 
he was very kind in the way which is never forgotten. His 
first wife, the mother of his children, was a cousin of my 
grandfather, and he took a genuine interest in the work I 
was doing in collecting my great-grandfather's letters and 
preparing a memoir of him. To me he was sympathetic and 



302 EARLY MEMORIES 

gentle always, and I became very fond of him. A descend- 
ant of John Winthrop, the founder of Massachusetts, he 
was a gentleman in every sense, and in the best sense. His 
manner was formal and very courteous, with the savor of an 
elder day. He was an accomplished man, a scholar in the 
old and generous acceptation of the word, widefy read, 
widely travelled, and a most delightful companion. Early 
in life he had entered politics and had been highly successful. 
From the Legislature he had gone to Congress and had been 
elected Speaker when the Whigs secured control. He was 
a Whig candidate for the Senate and had filled an unfinished 
term, but had lost his election owing to the rising anti- 
slavery tide and the coalition between the Democrats and 
Free-Soilers which swept Massachusetts from her Whig 
moorings. This was the end of his political career. He 
could not bring himself to accept the Republican party; 
he fell out of the race, and ended by voting the Democratic 
ticket and losing all hold upon the people of Massachusetts. 
Although embittered by his experience, he did not com- 
plain, but behaved always with dignity and turned to histor- 
ical studies for occupation. Only once in all my talks with 
him did the old feeling flash up. One day we were discussing 
Webster, with whom I had unquestioningly placed him as 
an ally and follower, when to my great surprise he spoke of 
Webster with an acerbity and energy which revealed to me 
a vigor and intensity of feeling of which I had not thought 
him capable. I do not remember what the precise grievance 
was, but he felt that Webster had betrayed him and he 
had not forgiven him. The real man came to the surface 
through the gracious, formal manner, and I was interested 
to see what very strong, human feelings the real man pos- 
sessed. Mr. Winthrop was an orator of much power and 
grace. His style was of his day, stately, careful, dignified, 
and his addresses and orations on many occasions gave him a 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 303 

large reputation throughout the country. But what I think 
of chiefly, as I recall him, is the kindly, high-bred gentle- 
man, thoughtful and well-mannered, who was always so 
helpful and encouraging to a young man who had no claim 
upon him except that we both loved books and history. 

Let me turn now from the men of public affairs to the 
men of letters whom I remember in my boyhood, and whom 
I knew or came to know in the years which followed my re- 
turn from Europe. I was born just at the time when the 
remarkable group of writers who made New England and 
Massachusetts famous were at their zenith, or rising to 
their highest achievement. In the fifties the Atlantic 
Mojithly was started, and the essays of the "Autocrat" 
begun. The first series of the "Biglow Papers" had been 
written, Emerson, Hawthorne, and Longfellow had already 
won their fame, and Prescott, Motley, and Bancroft had 
established their reputations as historians. Hawthorne I 
never saw, a misfortune I deeply regret, for I should have 
liked to cherish at least a memory of his looks. All the 
others I not only saw, but, with the exception of Mr. Pres- 
cott, met frequently, and in the process of the years came to 
know them personally and well. Let me begin, then, with 
the one whom I knew first, and who is associated with my 
very earliest memories, John Lothrop Motley. Mr. and 
Mrs. Motley, although much younger, were, I may repeat, 
intimate friends of my grandfather and grandmother Cabot, 
and this friendship was extended to my father and mother. 
Lady Harcourt, Mr. Motley's oldest daughter, was named 
Elizabeth Cabot for my aunt, a very beautiful girl who died 
when she was only nineteen years old. Whenever the 
Motleys were in the country they stayed with us at Nahant, 
I was taught to call them uncle and aunt, and the friendship 
thus begun with their three daughters has lasted through 
life, undiminished and unchanged either by time or separa- 



304 EARLY MEMORIES 

tion. Mrs. Motley, whom I loved much better than most 
of my blood relations, was, as I have said in an earlier 
chapter, and like to say again, a very handsome woman of 
unusual charm and warm affections, coupled with a warmth 
of feeling and an energy of opinion when she was moved 
which made her only the more attractive. 

It is not easy to me to describe Mr. Motley, because he 
was so entirely a part of my childish world that I accepted 
him as a matter of course, just as I did my father and 
mother, and never thought of looking at him from the out- 
side point of view. He was a remarkably handsome man. 
That fact impressed me at a very early day. He had, as I 
realized later, a singularly high-spirited look — eager, sen- 
sitive, proud ; he always made me think of a thoroughbred 
horse with its brilliant eyes just touched with wildness, its 
quick response to every movement, and the undaunted cour- 
age which holds until nature gives way and then drops never 
to rise again. Mr. Motley's nature corresponded to his 
looks. He had the keenest intensity of feeling, together 
with an unusual power of expressing it. His opinions were 
strong, and a calculating discretion never caused their con- 
cealment. As is common in such sensitive and emotional 
natures, he was full of fun and humor, which are apt to 
lie near the sources of anger or of tears. He was deeply 
loyal to his friends and very bitter toward his enemies. He 
acutely felt and fiercely resented wrong, whether to him- 
self, to his friends, or to the weak and oppressed; above all 
he resented any wrong to his country, for despite his living 
so much in Europe he was an ardent American, intense in his 
patriotism as in all else. The romantic movement in liter- 
ature and art was in full strength as Mr. Motley came to 
manhood, and, like other men of imagination, he was in 
entire sympathy with it and a part of it. He began his lit- 
erary life with two novels, "Merry-Mount" and "Mor- 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 305 

ton's Hope." The stories dealt with one of the episodes of 
the early settlement of New England which was enveloped 
in an atmosphere of mystery and romance not too common 
in the history of the grim struggle to found a state on that 
bleak and rugged coast. These novels were by no means 
devoid of merit, but they had no great success, and were 
overshadowed by the genius which, going to the same field, 
produced "The Scarlet Letter," the "Twice-told Tales," 
and "The House of the Seven Gables." Mr. Motley was 
dissatisfied with them and never alluded to them. They 
were not republished and, having been long out of print, 
are now a prize for the collector of first editions. Leav- 
ing fiction to others, Mr. Motley turned to history and 
selected as his subject the struggle of the Dutch for lib- 
erty and independence. No part of modern history could 
have been better adapted to his talents and his tempera- 
ment. His love of liberty, his gallant spirit, his hatred 
of oppression, all were appealed to by the heroic battle of 
the Dutch against the power of Spain, and the romantic 
episodes of that long fight against overwhelming odds 
touched the chords which vibrated so readily in those days 
of successful revolt against the dry, cold conventions of the 
eighteenth century. With a care and industry remark- 
able in one of his quick mind and impatient temper, he 
explored the archives and toiled through untouched and 
original authorities like the veriest antiquary. The re- 
sult was "The Rise of the Dutch Republic," which had an 
immediate and brilliant success, both at home and abroad, 
and which made his fame secure. He carried into his books 
the same energy and enthusiasm which made him so inspir- 
ing and so fascinating in private life. Long before I had 
read his history or knew anything of the period I had be- 
come deeply interested in all his heroes, especially in William 
the Silent, merely from hearing him talk about them. He 



306 EARLY MEMORIES 

made me feel as if they were all alive and fighting their great 
fight at that moment, and, boy-like, I longed to be a "Beg- 
gar of the Sea," and hated Philip II with a vigor which, 
I confess, a larger knowledge has not materially dimin- 
ished. Mr. Motley comes back to me now as I recall those 
early days with his flashing eyes, his high-spirited looks, his 
head flung back, talking with eager eloquence about Egmont 
and Horn and William of Orange, or about American slavery 
and North and South, always with the same intensity when 
he was moved, and with the same hatred of wrong and op- 
pression, whether among the dikes of Holland or on the 
plantations of the South. I wish that I could manage to 
give in words some idea of the effect of his presence and 
manner, which in many ways were the most striking I have 
ever seen in any man. But my attempt at description 
seems to me painfully inadequate. He had something in 
his look, something in his manner, which arrested attention 
as soon as he entered a room, and was in some indefinable 
way at once exciting and inspiring. In reading the attract- 
ive reminiscences of Lady Saint Helier, I was much pleased 
to notice that Mr. Motley, in her opinion, produced the very 
effect which I have tried to describe. She says: "There 
are some figures and faces one can never forget, and Mr. 
Motley was one of the most striking people I have ever 
seen. At this moment the impression he made upon me is 
as vivid as on that evening when I first looked upon the 
author of one of the most entertaining books of history that 
it is possible to read." When I read this testimony of a 
disinterested and keen observer, I felt that my own impres- 
sions of Mr. Motley's striking look and inspiriting manner 
were not led astray by propinquity and affection. He was, 
as Lady Saint Helier says, one of the rare people who are not 
only vivid, but can never fall a prey to forgetfulness among 
those who have seen and known them. He had, and I am 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 307 

inclined to think that his historical work had, something 
of that "wrath and partiality" which Byron admired in a 
historian. But these qualities make his books more and 
not less attractive, especially in these days of "scientific 
history," when it is the fashion of a certain school to hold 
that history is not literature, unmindful of the fact that it 
is only the history which is also literature which survives and 
is read, and so serves to enlighten and convince the world. 

The success of the Republican party found Mr. Motley 
in Europe, where he plunged into the fray in defence of the 
Union cause, outraged by the attitude of England and Eng- 
lish opinion. He was soon appointed minister to Vienna, 
and there we found him, late in the winter of 1867, and re- 
newed the old friendship and intimacy. When he returned 
to the United States after Grant's election, he was constantly 
at our house in Boston. That was, I think, the happiest 
time of his life. His place as a historian had been won, the 
Union cause in which his heart was bound up had triumphed, 
his party was successful, and he was on the eve of the recog- 
nition to which both his success in literature and his public 
services entitled him. I wish that I had known enough to 
make notes of his talks in those days, as they ranged from 
affairs at home, over European politics, to the history of 
the sixteenth century. I can only recall his description of 
Bismarck, then just assuming his commanding place in 
Europe, and with whom Motley had been intimate as a 
fellow student at Gottingen. Bismarck's greatest achieve- 
ments were still in the future, but Mr. Motley had the ut- 
most confidence in his powers, and told us much of those 
qualities of force and intellect about which the world was 
then wondering and speculating. 

Mr. Motley was appointed minister to England, and his 
ambition was gratified. Into the unhappy incidents which 
led to his quarrel with the administration and his removal 



308 EARLY MEMORIES 

from office this is not the place to enter. The blow was a 
cruel one. To a man of his sensitive nature and quick feel- 
ings it was wounding to the last degree. When we were 
abroad in 1871-2 we went to The Hague, whither he had 
gone to complete his life of John of Barneveldt, and there we 
saw him and all the family, as full of kindness and affection 
for us as ever. A proud man, Mr. Motley kept a brave 
face to the world, but in his own house he could not and did 
not conceal his bitter resentment at the treatment which he 
had received. I could see how much he had changed under 
the wrongs which he felt had been inflicted upon him. The 
old enmities and the old friendships, the intense feeling, the 
deep interest in past and present, were unaltered; but the 
high spirits, the fun and the laughter, always so engaging, 
were largely gone, and his talk was tinged with bitterness, 
while there was an air of depression about him when he was 
silent which had never been there before, and which it was 

sad to see. 

When I saw him next, three years later, it was still 
sadder. Mrs. Motley had died, and the light of his life 
had gone out. He had been crushed under the blow, and 
had suffered a touch of paralysis, from which he was rallying, 
but which affected his walk, although not seriously. He 
came home in 1875, and passed the summer with my mother 
at her house in Nahant, two of his daughters, the eldest, now 
Lady Harcourt, and the youngest, now Mrs. Mildmay, 
being with him. I saw him constantly during all that 
summer, was with him almost every day, and I think that 
I was of some comfort to him. His mind was as keen, as 
brilliant, as ever; and although he was broken in spirit, he 
liked to talk of history, of the events of the world past and 
present, and of the men he had known. He also took the 
most affectionate interest in all that I was doing, in my 
hopes and ambitions, in my speculations about life and its 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 309 

meaning. How much I wish now that I had made some 
note or record of those long talks, but I enjoyed them and let 
them pass, as is the fashion of youth. Now I have only 
memory to turn to as I recall those summer days. I remem- 
ber one occasion, when we happened to be speaking of style 
in prose and verse, his calling my attention to the beautiful 
effects which Shakespeare produced by his arrangement of 
words of Saxon origin in contrast to, and in juxtaposition 
with, those of Latin derivation. He quoted, as perhaps the 
best example, the lines from "Macbeth": 

"No, this my hand will rather 
The multitudinous seas incarnadine; 
Making the green one red." 

As soon as he repeated the familiar lines I saw at once that 
the effect which they make, and which at once arrests the 
attention and delights the ear, arose from the long, rich, full- 
sounding Latin words being sharply followed by the short 
Saxon words coming like the sharp beats of a drum after the 
organ notes of the preceding line. I never forgot either the 
lines or what Mr. Motley said, and it helped me to appreciate 
beauties in verse and high artistic skill in placing words when 
I had felt, but had never understood before, the reason for 
either. 

Apart from this I can only recall one other little remark; 
and why that should have struck me and remained in my 
memory I cannot tell, except that it seemed to body forth 
the sensitiveness of Mr. Motley's nature and the sadness 
which then pervaded him. We were on the Point one eve- 
ning toward autumn and watched the moon rise out of the 
sea and slowly climb upward from the horizon. It was a fine, 
cool night, and the moonlight was very clear and brilliant. 
He remarked upon it, and I said: "Nothing could be more 
brilliant except our moonlight in winter glittering on the 



310 EARLY MEMORIES 

snow." He turned on me almost fiercely and said: "I can- 
not bear moonlight on the snow. I hate it. It is so cold, 
so cruel, so unfeeling." He had suffered so much in his 
pride and his affections that he quivered under the slightest 
touch, and even the thought of the cold radiance of a moon- 
lit winter night pained him. 

He returned to England that autumn. He wrote to me 
occasionally, delightful and affectionate letters, and I shall 
yield to the temptation of giving one or two of them here, 
for he died two years later, and I never saw him again. 

5 Seamore Place, 

Mayfair 

London, 11 March, 76. 

MY DEAR CABOT : 

I ought to have sooner acknowledged and thanked you for 
your kind and interesting letter of 25 Jan., together with the excel- 
lent centennial number of the N. A. R. 

Unluckily writing is more difficult to me than ever as in addi- 
tion to unsteadiness of right hand has come dimness of right eye 
— so that I am inclined to howl "solve senescentem" to all to 
whom I owe letters. At the same time with national recklessness 
I am all for contracting fresh obligations while in a state of no- 
torious bankruptcy. 

So I beg you to write to me frequently, constantly, unremit- 
tedly. I should so much like to hear from you as often as you can 
find a spare quarter of an hour to enlighten me a little as to our 
political conditions. 

You say in your letter " in politics, as you have probably seen, 
there is the most absolute calm. But it is only the treacherous 
stillness which precedes the storm." 

Truly you are a prophet and the grandson of a prophet — for 
is not the gale blowing freshly enough now? 

I only hope it may blow away some of the vile effluvia by which 
the political atmosphere has become almost too poisonous for 
human existence. 

Certainly the daily telegrams from Washington to the London 
press make every patriotic and honest American hang his head. 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 311 

But I believe in the American people nevertheless as I always 
have done and I trust that this very putrid administration will 
soon be buried out of sight with all its belongings. 

I have had read to me two of the articles in the N. A. R. and 
shall have the others read also. I liked those on politics and on 
economic science very much. 

Is your thesis on Anglo Saxon Law printed? If so would you 
send me a copy? 

I should like to have the N. A. R. regularly sent to the above 
address. I hope future numbers will have many articles from 
your (and my) favorite author. 

Give all our love to your wife and mother and believe me 
always 

Affectionately yours, 

J. L. Motley. 

P. S. — When you see Professor Peirce I wish you would give 
my love to him and tell him how much I wish to thank him for his 
most kind and genial reference to myself at the Harvard Club 
dinner. It gratified and touched me very deeply. I need not say 
how interesting the whole speech was. 

Kingston-Russell House, 
Dorchester, 

Dorset, 2 June, 76. 

MY DEAR CABOT : 

I received the letter you were kind enough just two months 
ago to write to me and had very great pleasure and I may add 
instruction in reading it — which I did several times— besides show- 
ing it to one or two persons able to comprehend and kindly enough 
to sympathize with the mental condition of honest men in the 
present shameful condition of our politics. 

As I never despaired for one moment throughout our war with 
slavery from the beginning of it to the end, so I am able to hope 
now. I believe that the American people have not yet sold them- 
selves to the devil. It looks very like it just now. It looked very 
like it during the long period of compromise and prevarication 
which preceded the war. But the people are better and braver 
than the politicians. They found out the issue then. I hope 
they will again. I trust they will smash paper money as they 
smashed slavery and at much less expense. I even hope to live 



312 EARLY MEMORIES 

long enough to see a beginning of purification in the Civil Service. 
As soon as the vile phrases "to the victors the spoils" and "rota- 
tion in office" can be expunged from the politicians' creed there 
may be a chance for decent government. Not till then. 

I also received the invitation l which you sent to me thinking 
I might like to see it. Of course I understood that it was not ad- 
dressed to me personally and so did not answer it. I trust it is 
hardly necessary for me to say how fully I am in sympathy with 
the object and the men. Only in this way can that most vulgar 
and dangerous tyrant King Caucus and his elaborate and skillful 
system be deposed and destroyed. Since your letter came I see by 
the papers that the movement in which you did such good serv- 
ice has proved a success even if you don't force either Bristow 
or Tilden this time. But I think you will. Probably the latter. 

I hope you may find time to write me again. The sooner the 
better. I take great interest in you and I am likewise much in- 
terested in what you write. I wish I could send you something 
in return. But I am in the deepest retirement and I am also 
rather shaky, so that writing is a great effort. Nothing, how- 
ever, could be more insipid than English politics or more intensely 

respectable. 

I shall look for your impending publication with greatest 
interest. Meantime with much love to your Mother and your 

Wife I am 

Always Affectionately yours, 

J. L. Motley. 

As I have begun my recollections of the literary men 
whom I came to know during the years which intervened 
between my return from Europe and my entrance into public 
life with a historian, I will go on to other historians whose 
friendship I had the good fortune to possess. Although, as 
I have said, Mr. Prescott was not only a friend of my grand- 
father, one whom he saw much and to whom he was much 
attached, but also of my mother, I have no personal remem- 
brance of him, as he died in 1859 while I was still a boy. I 
must have seen him many times, yet nothing remains in my 

1 This refers to the gathering known as " The Fifth Avenue Conference." 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 313 

memory except the impressions given me by my mother of his 
charm and gentleness, his refinement and knowledge, and 
of the distinction which any one can see in the calm, high- 
bred face that looks out upon us from his portrait. One little 
story which my mother told me I still recall. She said that 
several times when she was a young girl Mr. Prescott would 
take her aside when they met and say: "Come, let us talk 
about our friend George Bancroft. We care nothing about 
his politics, but we love the historian." This was at the 
period when Mr. Bancroft's Democratic politics had made 
him extremely unpopular in Boston and Massachusetts, 
which were Whig strongholds, and when "Society" in the 
fashionable sense was almost universally Whig and bitterly 
hostile to President Jackson. The remark was very char- 
acteristic of Mr. Prescott, and my mother always spoke most 
affectionately of his kindness to her. One little note, which 
in some way has escaped the destruction wrought by time, 
I will also print, recalling as it does a trifling incident of the 
days that are gone. It is addressed to my grandmother, 
and what the gift referred to as a "Prince Albert" may have 
been I cannot conjecture. 

DEAR MRS. CABOT — 

I think I know the "friend and admirer"— at least I have no 
doubt as to the kind friend, who sent me the "Prince Albert" 
this morning. I am more likely indeed to fight my battles with 
the pen than the sword— and though a sword is rather an odd 
gage d'amitie, I most gladly receive it as such, and assure you I 
shall always wear it next my heart— tho' you will hardly expect it 
shall ever be at your service. 

With the best wishes for a happy New Year, and many a happy 
New Year, I am, my dear Mrs. Cabot, 

Most truly your obliged friend 

Wm. H. Prescott. 

Bedford St. 
Jan.— 1—1841. 



314 EARLY MEMORIES 

The little story brings me to another historian, Mr. 
Bancroft, whom I knew very well indeed, although he was 
fifty years old when I was born. But he lived until I was 
myself more than forty, and I corresponded with him for 
years, met him at Newport, and after I came to Congress I 
saw him constantly in Washington. He was an old friend 
of our family, connected with us by marriage, as his sister 
married my mother's uncle, Mr. John Blake. He was an es- 
pecial friend of my grandmother and my mother, and among 
the latter's papers I found not only many notes from him, 
but copies of verses, for he had a turn for writing verse in 
his younger days and indeed published a small volume of 
poems which he afterwards made every effort to buy up 
and destroy, so that the book is now rare, and has become 
a rarity prized by the collector. 

Mr. Bancroft was a man of great vigor and activity, both 
of body and mind. A graduate of Harvard and then of 
Gottingen, he in this way received an education to which 
very few Americans in those days attained. He was ambi- 
tious both in politics and in literature and in both he suc- 
ceeded. To both he brought great energy, unwearied in- 
dustry, a keen, penetrating, and relentless mind, and he 
drove forward to his object with ceaseless effort. He began 
by teaching school. It was a famous school in its day at 
Round Hill in Northampton, and excellent in its instruction, 
but the highly efficient head master was neither loved nor 
popular. Then he went into politics, an aggressive Demo- 
crat in a wilderness of Whigs with a strong Federalist tra- 
dition. He was appointed by Van Buren collector of the 
port of Boston, for the administration was only too delighted 
to find in New England a man of Mr. Bancroft's position and 
antecedents on the Democratic side. Already regarded with 
disfavor by the Whig community in which he lived, his suc- 
cess increased his unpopularity, for success is the most unfor- 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 315 

givable of sins in the eyes of those from whom we differ. On 
his side, moreover, Mr. Bancroft was not a man to disarm dis- 
like. He was combative, he could say bitter things, and he 
said them freely. Then he was the Democratic candidate for 
governor, secretary of the navy in Polk's cabinet, and min- 
ister to England. When he returned to the United States 
he abandoned Boston, where he was so disliked, and made 
his home in New York. There I first met him, although I 
had known all about him from my earliest years, for my 
mother had always maintained her friendship with him. I 
was a boy of fourteen when I was taken to dine at his house, 
and I well remember the occasion, the kindness and hospital- 
ity, and Mr. Bancroft's sharp incisive talk. Among other 
things I recall his saying that astronomers had recently 
calculated that the earth as a home for man would last 
only twenty-five million years longer. It seemed to me 
a most depressing statement, and I lay awake some time 
that night thinking over the approaching destruction of 
the world. 

During these years of politics and public service the 
"History of the United States" was begun and carried 
steadily forward. This is not the place to criticise or ex- 
amine Mr. Bancroft's great work. The florid style and the 
apostrophes to freedom and equality characteristic of the 
first edition and dear to the hearts of the followers of Jef- 
ferson and Jackson have lost their charm and now obscure 
the merits of his history and the enormous labor which it 
represented. But whatever the demerits of the style or 
the opinions, Mr. Bancroft rendered an inestimable service 
to American history by his thorough research, his examina- 
tion of huge masses of manuscripts, and by bringing to light 
an almost unlimited amount of original material never 
touched before, and without which the story of the colonies 
and the Revolution could never have been known or prop- 



316 EARLY MEMORIES 

erly told. For these labors the debt of the American people 
and of all later historians and students of American history 
to Mr. Bancroft is very great indeed. 

After my first meeting with Mr. Bancroft in New York 
I did not see him again for many years, but when I returned 
from Europe and started to collect material for my life of 
my great-grandfather I began to correspond with him ; and 
after that we kept up a constant intercourse. I can never 
forget his help, his encouragement, his unfailing kindness 
to me, and his interest in all I was doing and writing. Then 
later, in Washington, I was much at his house. It seemed 
to me that he was as quick, as alert, as sharp of speech in 
those closing years, as at any time. Until the very last, age 
did not wither him, and he used to ride and walk and talk as 
if he were sixty instead of eighty. He had a great deal of 
caustic humor, vast knowledge of all kinds, and was a most 
interesting and entertaining companion. There was in his 
nature a vein of hardness, and he was a good hater both in 
life and in history. But he was an able man, a devoted 
American, an earnest patriot, and to me the kindest of 
friends. He had, no doubt, mellowed with age, but the qual- 
ities which had made him unpopular were never shown 
to me, although I can conceive that in his younger days he 
may well have been a formidable and also an irritating op- 
ponent. I am writing at the table on which he wrote, and a 
picture of himself which he gave me hangs close by. They 
awaken only pleasant memories of a kind and helpful friend- 
ship, and bring before my eyes the slender, alert figure, the 
snow-white beard, the keen eyes, and the quick speech which 
made Mr. Bancroft so long one of the marked figures of 
Washington. He had outlived the old hostilities and was 
revered and respected by every one; honored by successive 
Congresses as a man who had done great work both in wri- 
ting and in making history. I am going to give here a few 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 317 

of his letters which will show the qualities I have tried to 
describe better than any words of mine. 

Mr. Howe, in his most excellent biography, has very 
properly chosen the letters dealing with matters of imme- 
diate or historical moment. Of necessity they are grave 
and elaborate in proportion to their importance. Those 
from which I select are the little notes of friendship, hastily 
written, concerned with slight and passing incidents of the 
day, of no deep import either in politics or history. But 
they show a side of Mr. Bancroft which his more serious 
letters do not disclose; the side which certainly appeared to 
friends for whom he cared, even if the world never saw it. 
In these letters his humor and his love of fun come out; while 
through them runs at the same time a vein of sentiment and 
affection which it seems to me now very pleasant to recall. 
The letters which I have gathered together from their rest- 
ing-places begin with one to my great-uncle, Dr. Kirkland, on 
his resignation of the presidency of Harvard College, a letter 
full of enthusiasm, admiration, and gratitude to the good 
man to whom Mr. Bancroft felt that he owed much. This 
letter was written in 1828; and the others to my mother, 
to my father, and to me, come down across the years to 
1888. From this long period of sixty years I choose a few, 
beginning with some to my mother when she was a young 
girl, advising her as to her reading and studies: 

The hermit hopes that his friend is not given up to gloom, 
that she selects for topics such melancholic subjects as the re- 
treat of the ten thousand and the fall of Empires! 

(Addressed, without date or signature, to Miss Cabot.) 

This month I saw the moon over my right shoulder, and I 
prepared myself for good luck. But little did I dare to expect 
that my gray hairs would be honored with the present of the most 



318 EARLY MEMORIES 

beautiful purse that young hands ever knit. I shall keep your 
precious gift, dear Miss Cabot, among the choicest of my man- 
itous and pray heaven to teach me gratitude. 

Most sincerely 

Your obliged 
Oct. 26. George Bancroft. 

Here is Sir John Caldwell's favorite volume of Rousseau. 
The Confession of the Savoyard Vicar with which it opens is world- 
renowned. Despise Cottin; or rather commiserate Beranger's 
songs. I have: Lamartine's poems; Casimir de la Vigne; some 
things of Chateaubriand. All, my dear Miss Cabot, at the serv- 
ice of your class. I can select beautiful detached passages of 
Rousseau; Of Voltaire have you read Nanine? 

With profound respect as is fitting 
faithfully yrs 
Wednesday. G. Bancroft. 

On this fourth day of March 1841, Mr. Bancroft cannot 
repress the expression of his exultation at discovering a transcen- 
dental neighbor. Cousin has written no system: his works are 
fragmentary; all which Mr. B. has, and entirely at the service of 
Miss Cabot. But this little volume of Damiron contains an out- 
line and history of the whole brood of eclectics, and furnishes a 
pleasant introduction for one wishing information on the state of 
opinion in France, as expressed by Cousin and his compeers. 

DEAR MRS. LODGE — 

Mrs. Bancroft would neither let me read her letter, nor add a 
postscript; so I blew a kiss into the letter which you will please 
give to Lillie Lodge. I had a word to say, but with best regards 
to Mr. Lodge, time would not let me say how strongly I am at- 
tached to old and faithful friends. Ever my dear Mrs. Lodge, 

Very truly yrs 
Feb. 3 — '47 George Bancroft 

Mrs. Bancroft overlooks me and says this note is not worth 
much. For myself I set a value on the slightest testimony of 
regard. 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 319 

MY DEAR FRIEND, 

You have not been out of my mind, chere amie, since I left 
America; and in token of it I beg to send you the homes of the 
poets done in India ink on napkins by a fair dame of Scotland. 
Your brother in law dwells in my memory, and on arriving in 
London, if I am absent, he will find a letter for him to Mr. Rush, 
who is a little too old for the Meridian of Paris, and the Secretary 
of Legation will look after him. I say, if I am absent, which on 
my own account I should very much regret; for as you do not let 
us see you, as we expected, I desire very much to get news of my 
vis-a-vis, my true friend, who heaped upon me kindnesses and 
whom I never forget. Indeed I cannot buy a ticket to hear Jenny 
Lind or pay a debt of any kind without being reminded of my 
debt of gratitude to you. For while one of my purses is treas- 
ured up as a talisman, the other is my constant companion. 

Betty, my wife, has never seen the continent. So I shall, 
tomorrow night, take her across the Channel to Ostend and show 
her Cologne and the Rhine, the Alps and their glaciers, Geneva 
and its lakes; with Chamouni and perhaps Altdorf and the Lake 
of Lucerne; and I shall leave her the option of her route back, 
only she must return quickly. Louise we leave at school in Geneva 
and my boys must plod at Greek and Latin at Vevey. It will be 
two years before we sleep under a roof in America, two years more 
that my household Gods must be travellers and sojourners. 

Give my best regard to your father and to your husband and 
remain my dear Mrs. Lodge the true friend of 

Your affectionate cousin and friend 

George Bancroft 

90 Eaton Square 
31 August 1847 

To John E. Lodge 1 

New York 26 February — 1851 
Blessed be the discoverers of tea, dear Mr. Lodge, and blessed 
be the good "Padre" and the good friend that has enabled us to 

iMy father was, as I have said, a China merchant and always imported 
for himself and his friends some chests of especially fine and rare tea. The 
Dragon was a curio, but that was long before the days of Japanese and 
Chinese collections and probably interested Mr. Bancroft very slightly. 



320 EARLY MEMORIES 

inhale its delicious fragrance and enjoy its delicate and exhilara- 
ting power. The tea came as you intended and we were all im- 
patience to enter upon the experimental knowledge of its excel- 
lence. And be sure, it is the nicest black tea I have tasted for 
many a long day. My wife is still more enraptured with it; so 
she has deputed to my tempered and moderating admiration the 
pleasing office of acknowledging your kindness. For a good cup 
of tea, what a blessing it is! And how constantly the benefit re- 
turns ! Evening and morning, as regularly as the hymns of Adam 
and Eve in Paradise, the delicious beverage is prepared; and I 
assure you, in sober earnest, it is as good tea as I ever tasted. 
For the Dragon, I am not so good a judge; and I have been so 
pleased with the "Padre" that I shall not readily divide my hom- 
age at present with anything else. 

I am glad you returned safely and found the babies well. I 
hope you like us so much that you will soon come again. Give 
our love to Mrs. Lodge; remind your daughter of us; make our 
regards acceptable to Mr. Cabot and believe me 
My dear Mr. Lodge 
Very truly 

Your obliged 

George Bancroft. 

Saturday 8 July (1876) 

DEAR COUSIN, RELATIVE AND FRIEND, 

Learn to do just homage to Brooks Adams. I lend you his 
precious oration; but do not be misled into the idea that it was 
Lincoln who received the sword of Cornwallis. 

I dreamed last night of our drive over Indian Cliff, and our 
finding our way into Paradise Avenue as tho' it had been made 
for us. 

Yours devotedly 

George Bancroft 

7 July 77 

MY DEAR COUSIN AND FRIEND: 

The rabbit said to the lioness, you have but one son: True, 
said the lioness, but my only son is a lion. I congratulate you on 
having a son who joins a devoted affection for his mother with 
the superior ability and seriousness of character which his life of 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 321 

George Cabot displays. Nothing could make me more happy, 
than to have a son or grandson who would write a book, marked 
by such exhaustive research, such manly independence and such 
substantial impartiality of statement, while his heart was throb- 
bing with the intensest devotedness to the love of family and 
home. The work of Mr. Lodge, which I have read or rather 
studied from the first word to the last with the closest attention, 
is the most important contribution to our history that has been 
made for many a day. 

I am ever dear Mrs. Lodge, with truth and affection, your 
servant relative and friend. 

George Bancroft 

Dr. Palfrey, Mr. Bancroft's contemporary and his senior 
by only four years, was kind enough to give me advice and 
help when I was beginning my historical work, and I am glad 
that I have among my letters a few from him. But he was 
then so old a man, and living in such retirement at Cam- 
bridge, that my acquaintance with him never went beyond 
the correspondence. I regret that this should have been the 
case, not only because I greatly admired Dr. Palfrey's "His- 
tory of New England," a monument of unwearying research 
and of precise and careful narrative, but also because Dr. 
Palfrey had been one of the antislavery leaders and had 
fought the good fight in the darkest days with unwavering 
courage and constancy. He was one of the oldest of the 
"human-rights statesmen" who rose to control in Massa- 
chusetts and in the nation, and passed early from the stage 
when those who followed him or fought by his side were 
predominant. All that remains to me is the pleasant 
memory of the kindness of an old and eminent man, dis- 
tinguished in politics and letters, to a young fellow just 
entering life. 

One other American historian of that time, who was 
nearly a generation younger than Palfrey and Bancroft, but 
yet associated with them in my memories, I knew well, 



322 EARLY MEMORIES 

and my remembrance of Francis Parkman, his friendship 
and unvarying kindness to me, are among the best of the 
possessions which are assured to me by the grim security 
of the past. 

Some years ago Theodore Roosevelt and I published a 
little volume entitled "Hero Tales of American History/' 
and I found a subject for one of the tales which I tried to 
tell in the life of Parkman. One does not look usually to 
the lives of historians and men of letters for examples of 
heroism, and yet if there ever was a heroic life and a victory 
of will and courage over pain and infirmity, it was that of 
the man who wrote the books which tell the story of the 
great struggle between France and England for the control 
of the American continent. For many years practically 
blind, never able to use his eyes except in the most limited 
way, crippled at times physically by affections of the nerves, 
a constant sufferer from sleeplessness and intense pain in 
the head, he examined difficult manuscripts, toiled through 
dusty archives, amassed material for an almost untouched 
subject, and wrote a great history in many volumes. If he 
had simply cared for his health and borne without complaint 
that long disease, his life, those who knew him would justly 
have wondered at and admired such fortitude. But he 
trampled pain and infirmity under foot, performed an amount 
of labor which would have been heavy for the strongest, and 
if ever there was a high and victorious spirit it was his. As 
to his work, I agree with my friend Mr. Rhodes that it is 
the one achievement of an American historian which be- 
longs to that small number of histories which never become 
obsolete and are never superseded. There is no room for 
the discovery of new material sufficient to supplant his story 
or seriously modify his conclusions. It will be no more 
possible for the future historians of the American continent 
to push Parkman aside than it is for new writers on the 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 323 

Roman Empire or the early Middle Ages to relegate Gibbon 
to obscurity or remove him from the lonely height which he 
occupies with Thucydides and Tacitus. So thorough was 
Parkman's work that but little new material exists un- 
touched by him ; and his histories have, moreover, the endur- 
ing qualities of precision, fairness, and dignity, as well as a 
finished and simple style, usually somewhat cold but capable 
of rising to great heights, as in the chapter which describes 
the victory and death of Wolfe and the defeat and death 
of Montcalm, heroic figures both. 

I remember well seeing Mr. Parkman when I was a boy, 
and he made an impression on my memory and imagination 
which is vivid to this day. A tall, slender figure in a long 
gray coat, with a fur cap, in winter, drawn down close over 
his head, he would come walking up Beacon Street moving 
with great rapidity, a heavy cane in each hand, on which 
he rested his weight and by which he propelled himself. 
Going at a tremendous pace, he would suddenly stop as if 
exhausted and lean against a house or a railing. Then in a 
few minutes he would resume his canes, and push away as 
though he were running a race. I learned afterwards that he 
was at that time much crippled, and that only in this way 
could he get air and exercise; but he could not move deliber- 
ately and his intense nervous energy drove him forward with 
restless rapidity, although every exertion was a pain to him. 
I remember asking my mother who the gentleman was 
who thus arrested my wandering attention, and she ex- 
plained to me that it was Mr. Frank Parkman and told me 
what a battle for life he was compelled to make. 

When I came to know him after my return from Europe 
he was much better. He walked normally, he was one of 
the corporation of Harvard College, he was able to go about 
and see his friends, now and then he dined out, but not 
often, for his sleep was still insecure and his eyes required 



324 EARLY MEMORIES 

the most delicate and constant care. I found on nearer 
view that the striking figure of my boyhood was accom- 
panied by a face and look even more striking. All Mr. 
Parkman's features were irregular. Under analysis I do 
not suppose one of them could have justly been praised as 
handsome. Yet I have seldom seen a finer face. What- 
ever the details, the effect was that of beauty; intellect, 
force, character, breeding, distinction, were all there in his 
strongly marked features, and, despite all he had passed 
through, so powerful had been his will that he had no ex- 
pression of suffering nor in the least the look of an invalid. 
My acquaintance with Mr. Parkman began, as did that 
with Mr. Bancroft, and was continued in roses. Both were 
rose-growers and most successful. Mr. Parkman, however, 
carried his pursuit, taken up when he could not work at his 
history, to the perfection of a profession. He not only 
won prizes eveiywhere with his roses, but he wrote a most 
excellent book in regard to them and their cultivation. The 
manner in which he dealt with this amusement was very 
characteristic. He pursued the occupation with relentless 
energy until he had made himself complete master of his 
subject and attained the highest degree of excellence. 
Spurred by these illustrious examples, I, too, began to cul- 
tivate roses, and, writing to Mr. Bancroft and Mr. Parkman 
for information, received the most cordial advice and help 
from both, which enabled me to succeed in growing the most 
beautiful of flowers sufficiently well to give myself much 
pleasure until absorption in other and more serious occupa- 
tions compelled me to turn my bushes over to my gardener. 
From that time forward I saw a great deal of Mr. Park- 
man and talked with him freely about politics and history 
and the affairs of the college. He dined with us occasionally, 
came to see us frequently, and was most kind to my children, 
who thought him the best of companions, for he had the 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 325 

qualities which attracted children, although I do not think 
that side of his character was generally appreciated, any 
more than his abundant humor, sometimes a little grim but 
always very real and true. He was a perfectly fearless man 
and would set forth unpopular opinions with an entire dis- 
regard of consequences. As he expressed all his views on 
any subject with a most incisive vigor, no one was ever in 
doubt as to what he thought. But the memory which dwells 
with me was of his constant kindness and sympathy freely 
given to a very young man, of the patience with which he 
would listen, the help and advice which he would give, and 
the freedom with which he would discuss all subjects, inter- 
esting me very much and teaching me more. 

From the historians I come to the poets, the makers, 
members of that goodly company which during the cen- 
turies of recorded time have sung to us and rejoiced the heart 
of mankind, and who out of their imagination, whether in 
verse or prose, have created men and women often more 
real to us than those who march in the pageant of human 
history. The first poet I ever saw was Mr. Longfellow. 
He lived at Nahant in summer, and his love of the place, 
of the sea and shore, of the lights and shadows and sounds 
of the ocean, is told in many charming verses. As a boy I 
saw him constantly and gazed upon him with a distant awe 
because I had read and recited many of his ballads and nar- 
rative poems, and a real poet in the flesh seemed very won- 
derful to me. In those early days I naturally did not talk 
with him, but it was much to me then to have seen him. I 
have often, as I have recalled that dream-like past, had 
Browning's lines come to my lips: 

"Ah, did you once see Shelley plain? 
And did he stop and speak to you? 
And did you speak to him again? 
How strange it seems and new!" 



326 EARLY MEMORIES 

No men more unlike than Longfellow and Shelley could be 
conceived. As poets they not only cannot be compared, 
but they cannot even be named together, so far did Shelley 
outsoar Longfellow, as indeed he outsoared almost all other 
poets of the modern world. Yet I like to think that as a 
boy I saw Longfellow plain, and I am sure that he must 
have been much pleasanter to live with than the "pard- 
like spirit" whose fevered life ended in the waters of the 
Mediterranean. 

Yet although I had often seen Longfellow as a boy, I 
did not really know him until after my return from Europe. 
Then in various ways I came to see him frequently. He was 
Sumner's most intimate friend and loved him with a deep 
loyalty of affection. Sumner, as I have said, divided his 
time at Nahant every year between Mr. Longfellow and 
ourselves. The result was that I dined at Mr. Longfellow's 
and went there often to see Mr. Sumner, and he dined with 
us, not only to meet Sumner, but my father-in-law, Admiral 
Davis, who was a lifelong friend of the old Cambridge time. 
In those days when I saw him Mr. Longfellow was very 
quiet, invariably gentle, but usually silent while others 
talked, although he always listened sympathetically. I used 
to imagine that he had grown silent since the tragic death of 
his wife, and that the shadow of that sorrow never lifted. 
Occasionally I met him on his walks, and then he would 
allow me to join him and talked much more than when others 
were present. It was most delightful to be with him, for he 
seemed so calm, so removed above the storms of life, and yet 
always so kind, so very gentle, and so sympathetic. But 
the gentleness implied nothing soft or indefinite. He held 
strong opinions and was without fear. I remember well at 
a dinner which my mother gave for Mr. Schurz, when he 
delivered in Boston his eulogy upon Sumner, I sat next to 
Mr. Longfellow. Mr. Schurz was an accomplished speaker. 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 327 

His address had been received with great applause and I 
had fallen in with the current, and without analysis was in a 
mood of uncritical admiration, although I cannot now recall 
a word that Mr. Schurz said, nor did he give me a thought 
or a phrase which has remained with me. I asked Mr. 
Longfellow if he did not think Mr. Schurz's address very 
fine. "No," he replied, with clear decisiveness; "it was a 
clever speech, but I do not believe in proceeding by nega- 
tions. I did not wish to have him tell us what Sumner was 
not, but what he was." Under the gentle manner now and 
then, if he were roused by anything, or if his indignation 
was excited there would come a flash in his eyes and a look 
in his face which made one feel the presence of a strong 
nature and strongly suggested that his own "Viking bold" 
was numbered among his ancestors. 

He was a very handsome man, handsome, as so rarely 
happens, in his old age, with his clear blue eyes and snow- 
white hair and beard. Inseparable from him was the air 
of distinction and high breeding without a trace of egotism 
or any suggestion that he was conscious of his own fame, 
which, however men may differ as to his poetry, was as 
wide as the language in winch he wrote, and which had con- 
quered recognition in other tongues. He had read widely 
and well, and one always felt the presence of the scholar 
when one was with him. As an English critic said at the 
time, Mr. Longfellow was always an artist, and his respect 
for his art and his refined taste were perfectly apparent in 
the converse of daily life. He comes back to me now as a 
veiy noble figure of those early days, and I like to think 
that he was one of the men I knew. I will give one 
little note from him, not because it has any intrinsic im- 
portance, but because it shows how ready he was out of 
sheer kindness of heart to extend a helping hand to a young 
man to whom he had given his friendship. With Mr. John 



328 EARLY MEMORIES 

T. Morse, Jr., I had just taken up the editorship of the 
International Review, and I wrote to Mr. Longfellow asking 
if he would not send us a poem for publication. This was 
his reply : 

Cambridge, March 18 th 1879 

DEAR MR LODGE 

I am sorry I have not something more elaborate to send you 
for the International than these two stanzas. They are enough, 
perhaps, to show you my good-will, and being short, stand a 
better chance of being read than if they were longer. 

I am glad you have taken the Review and hope it may be 
fully successful. For that you have my best wishes. 

Yours very truly 

Henry W. Longfellow 

Then follows the little poem entitled "Jugurtha" written 
out in his own clear, precise hand. 

Mr. Emerson I saw at the Historical Society and on one 
or two other occasions. I cannot, and I deeply regret that 
I cannot, say that I really knew him. When I saw him I 
watched him with the deepest interest, although I was then 
far from realizing what a truly great man he was and that I 
was in the actual presence of one of the remarkable minds 
of the century; poet, thinker, creator of ideas, planter of 
thoughts which were to grow up and flower in alien soils to 
which the very name of him who sowed the seed was un- 
known. Tall, thin, with a face full of intellect, unscarred 
by passion, in a way remote in look and yet with such human 
sympathy and feeling in the regard that no one could call 
it ascetic, he seemed to me a man whose mere appearance 
must have impressed the most careless gazer. The last 
time I saw him was at the Historical Society, where he read 
a little paper in memory of Carlyle. His mind had begun 
to fail, or rather his characteristic absent-mindedness had 
increased. His daughter was with him to help him with 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 329 

his papers. All that he said had the old charm, but there 
was a slight touch of sadness, of pathos about it. His 
words, as Lowell says of Villon's famous line, 

"Oil sont les neiges d'antan," 

seemed "to falter and fade away in the ear like the last 
stroke of Beauty's passing bell." The occasion on which I 
remember Mr. Emerson best was at a dinner at my mother's 
house, to which I have already referred in connection with 
Mr. Longfellow, on the occasion of the Schurz eulogy upon 
Sumner, April 29, 1874. By some lucky accident I made a 
note of it in one of the many diaries which in the ardor of 
youth I was continually beginning, only to drop them into 
some convenient oubliette with their little writing and their 
many blanks. I find from my notes that Mr. and Mrs. 
Schurz and their daughter, Longfellow, Emerson, and Dr. 
Holmes were the guests. Then the note continues: " Long- 
fellow as always very silent except to his next neighbor 
(who happened to be myself). Emerson also very quiet. 
Only one remark of his I remember. Dr. Holmes was 
describing a dynamometer, or contrivance for measuring 
memory, with great enthusiasm. The machine was his 
own invention. Emerson listened in silence and then said, 
in a low voice, 'Such things are very disagreeable to me.' 
The beauty of Emerson's smile is veiy striking. I never 
saw so winning and attractive a smile in a man. Holmes 
talked well and drew Schurz out and into a very interest- 
ing talk about debating." So the meagre entry in the diary 
ends, but I am glad to have even so poor a record of an 
evening that still dwells in my memory. 

"Holmes talked well," says the note. When did he not 
talk well? Good talk at the dinner-table, or after dinner, 
or by the fireside— I mean the best talk— is very rare. It 
is much rarer than is generally supposed, for I am excluding 



330 EARLY MEMORIES 

tete-a-tete and mean talk to a group, with others present to 
talk and listen. I think I have heard some of the best 
talkers of my time. "They were not many ; they who stood 
upon the heights/' but I am sure of their quality. John 
Hay, Mr. Evarts, Lord Rosebery, Mr. Balfour, Lord Mor- 
ley, Henry Adams, Mr. Speaker Reed, Mr. Lowell, Mr. 
T. B. Aldrich, Dr. Holmes; these seem to me the best. I 
am speaking only of after-dinner talk, an art by itself. I 
could cover the page with the names of men of ability to 
whom it was always a pleasure to listen and whose talk has 
been to me an admiration and delight, appealing to every 
faculty and stimulating every nerve. But the talk to the 
little company around the table or by the fire, which it is 
impossible to define exactly, is peculiar in its requirements 
and demands an especial combination of qualities. It must 
have humor, wit, and seriousness, all three. It demands 
wide knowledge of books and men. The anecdote it uses 
must be apt to the highest degree and sparingly employed. 
It must pierce deeply and yet touch lightly. In a word, it 
must have charm, that impalpable attribute which no one 
can define but which in absence or in presence is at once 
recognized. Among those men whom I have just men- 
tioned it would be invidious even to attempt a rank-list, but 
I may go so far as to say that in this most difficult art I do 
not think Dr. Holmes was surpassed by any one. In fact, 
I have referred to it only to define Dr. Holmes. In this talk 
he seemed to me to be gifted with every one of the rare 
qualities, still rarer in conjunction, which the art requires. 
His wit and humor were boundless and always on the alert. 
His memory was extraordinary and his knowledge in all di- 
rections remarkable. His curiosity was insatiable and had 
taken all learning for its province, while at the same time it 
made him eager to know the experience and thoughts of 
every one else, no matter how young or insignificant the 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 331 

every one else might be. This rendered the monologue, the 
great danger of all brilliant talkers, impossible to him, and 
made him as good in listening as he was in speech, a very 
uncommon combination. His criticism was frank and tell- 
ing, sometimes severe, but never harsh or wounding, and my 
impression was always strong of his kindness and sympathy. 
We all were so used to him in Boston that, much as we 
loved and admired him, I am quite sure that we never did 
him full justice. 

When he was a veiy young man, just beginning the prac- 
tice of medicine, he placed a card on his door bearing these 
words: "The smallest fevers thankfully received and grate- 
fully acknowledged." Every one laughed, but it hurt him 
professionally, although he was a most accomplished phy- 
sician and an admirable teacher of anatomy, upon which 
he lectured for half a century. It is a perilous thing to 
make people look to you habitually for a laugh if you are 
tiying to do serious work in the world. If a man is sus- 
pected of not taking himself seriously there is danger that 
other people will fail to do so. Eveiybody loves the jester 
who jests well, but those who listen and laugh are apt to for- 
get that under the jest of a really brilliant man the most seri- 
ous purpose may be hidden. No one jested more or better 
than Lincoln; the joke was often his armor of defence, and 
yet no man ever lived with a higher seriousness of purpose or 
who did a mightier work. I have always thought that the 
stories about Lincoln and his own jokes were a powerful rea- 
son for the misapprehension from which he suffered in his 
lifetime and unduly protracted the period which passed be- 
fore he came into his own. I remember very well one day in 
the House Mr. S. S. Cox, then a member from New York, 
and one of the ablest Democrats in the House, as he was 
the wittiest and cleverest in public life, when I was laughing 
at some criticism which he had uttered, said with a touch of 



332 EARLY MEMORIES 

bitterness: "If I were six feet tall instead of five feet six and 
had never made a joke I should be in that chair (pointing to 
the Speaker's place) and not on the floor. The people like 
those who make them laugh, but they will never give the 
highest places to anyone whom they do not think serious." 
John Allen, of Mississippi, who was in the House with me, 
was a man of great humor and drollery. Whenever he arose 
the House prepared to laugh, and generally with good reason. 
But when he tried to make a serious speech — and he could 
make a very good one, and held serious opinions on many 
subjects — the House would not listen to him, of which I 
have heard him complain. 

This Nemesis of the jester, the humorist, and the wit 
hung over Dr. Holmes, I think. Indeed, he says himself: 

" While my gay stanza pleased the banquet's Lords 
My heart within was tuned to deeper chords." 

People listened with delight to the occasional verses which 
flowed so readily whenever asked, and which sparkled and 
glittered with a never-failing freshness, and they forgot too 
often that the same hand had written "The Chambered 
Nautilus." They rejoiced in the good things, the repartees, 
the quick jests which he gave out with utter profusion to 
any one he met, and they did not remember that he was 
also a great writer, a creator of characters, of fine imagina- 
tion, with a large seriousness of purpose and full of tender 
and beautiful thoughts. The "Autocrat of the Breakfast 
Table" is a great as well as a brilliant book, and so, too, in 
perhaps a slightly less degree, are its successors. It is brim- 
ming over with wit and wisdom, with sentiment and feeling. 
It is full of curious learning and of passages which strike 
deep, of reflections upon the meaning of life and of the uni- 
verse marked by anticipations of those Eastern philosophies 
with which the world has grown more familiar during the 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 333 

last fifty years. The "Autocrat" is far better reading than 
the "Anatomy of Melancholy," of which the Doctor himself 
was so fond. It is quite worthy to stand on the same table 
by the bedside with Montaigne and Tristram Shandy. As 
Dogberry says, "comparisons are odorous," but I know one 
reader who loves all three and prefers the "Autocrat" to 
either the French gentleman or the English parson, brilliant 
as they both were. In due time the "Autocrat" will come 
to its own as one of the world's best books in that small, 
rare class of which Montaigne may now be taken as the 
accepted exemplar. 

Dr. Holmes is one of my earliest and strongest memories. 
Mrs. Holmes was a cousin of my mother, and I heard the 
Doctor quoted and spoken about from the days when I first 
"took notice." To me, as a boy, he was one of the most 
familiar figures in the town, as indeed he was to every one 
in Boston. Short, erect, alert in every fibre, he passed 
along the streets, the embodiment of vivid existence; the 
long, capacious head with its intellectual forehead, the keen, 
kindly eyes, the mouth drawn down in a quizzical way at 
the corners, would all impress the most careless with a sense 
of power, intelligence, and humor, if one took the trouble 
to look twice. Carlyle pored over portraits as among the 
most important documents for history, and I think any one 
who studied Dr. Holmes's face and expression would have 
found them a book in which could be read not only strange 
but many other interesting matters. When I try to recall 
him to my mind, in Iris habit as he lived, I always think of 
him first on the occasion of the breakfast given to him by 
the publishers of the Atlantic to celebrate his seventieth 
birthday. The company consisted in the main of the con- 
tributors to the Atlantic, and included many well-known 
writers and distinguished men. When Dr. Holmes rose to 
respond to the heartfelt felicitations and expressions of ad- 



334 EARLY MEMORIES 

miration and affection which had poured in upon all sides, 
the applause was followed by a hush of the kind which im- 
plies a deeper feeling than any shouts or plaudits can mani- 
fest. Then it is that he stands before me again as I think 
of him. The short, alert figure, the face so full of the keenest 
and highest intelligence, the humorous look, not there at 
that instant but in its stead the evidence of restrained emo- 
tion. He then read his poem, "The Iron Gate." His voice, 
slightly veiled, always had a peculiar quality which was very 
effective, and never more so than on that day. There are 
many very beautiful lines in that poem, but then it was all 
suffused with a feeling which was more affecting than any 
verse. When he concluded, he had moved his audience so 
much that no one felt ready to speak because there was 
something the matter with his throat, and no one saw very 
clearly because his eyes seemed a little dim. There could 
have been no greater tribute of affection, no clearer confes- 
sion of the power of the orator or of the art of the poet. I 
see him again very vividly at the annual meeting of the 
Historical Society, April 17, 1882, when he delivered an 
address on Longfellow. "He closed by reading a poem, the 
last written by the dead poet, and also one of his own. 
The address was very interesting and often brilliant, show- 
ing very strongly his wonderful preservation of freshness." 
So runs the mechanical entry in the diary, but the com- 
monplace words do not picture the central figure of that day 
as I see it in the procession of the ghosts of thirty years ago. 
The abundant hair had turned white, but age had not 
withered him ; the fire, the charm, the tenderness awakened 
by the thoughts of his departed friend, were all there, un- 
faded and undimmed. 

As the years passed by, and after I had left college, I 
came much nearer to him than merely repeating his verses 
or looking at him with admiration. I came to know him 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS :;:;:, 

well, and I shared in the affection which all who knew him 
well felt for him. He dined with us frequently in Boston, 
and came often to our house at Nahant, especially when 
Admiral and Mrs. Davis, to whom he was a devoted friend, 
were with us. There are one or two places or one or two 
views indelibly associated with him in my mind. Standing 
in the hall of my house and looking north one sees Egg Rock 
with its lonely lighthouse just framed in by the glass set in 
the upper half of the door. Coming one day to luncheon, 
the Doctor paused and looked at the rock, remarking on its 
picturesqueness. I said, "Yes, it is veiy picturesque, but 
it is not always a pleasant place to live in winter. Last 
winter the weather was so severe, and there was so much 
floating ice, that the keeper could not get ashore for six 
weeks. During that time his wife died, and he placed the 
body in the outhouse where it froze stiff. When the weather 
broke he took the body ashore in his dory, buried it, and 
brought off another wife the same night, in the same dory." 
The Doctor laughed, and then said: "But there is the sub- 
ject for a poem in that story. It would begin something in 
this way: 

" Her corpse begemmed with frozen tears, 
I now to earth restore." 

Another day we were strolling about the place and stopped 
on an abrupt headland to look out over the ocean. It was 
a lovely summer afternoon with a light air just ruffling the 
smooth surface of the water. The Doctor looked down, 
and then quoted Tennyson's beautiful line: 

"The wrinkled sea beneath him crawls." 

"The wrinkled sea," he repeated; "how perfect! Why 
didn't I think of that; I might have." It was on another 



336 EARLY MEMORIES 

occasion, of which this little story reminds me, that he said 
to me what I have often quoted: "Every man who writes 
or speaks with any success will once, or perhaps twice or 
three times, do a little better than he knows how. You will 
some day. I did when I wrote ' The Chambered Nautilus.' " 
It was profoundly true, but I suppose some people might 
say that it was vain in him to refer to his own poem. I 
thought his doing so in that connection the reverse of vain. 
He was accused of vanity, but if he had that quality it was 
joined with a most generous admiration of others. It was a 
vanity which went hand in hand with an intense interest in 
the experiences, the opinions, and the thoughts of other 
people, no matter how young or how obscure. It was a 
vanity which never grated on any one else's feelings. He 
undoubtedly took a delight in his own success and achieve- 
ments. But his pleasure was as frank and simple as that 
of a child. He was far too clever not to appreciate his own 
cleverness, and why should he not have shown that appre- 
ciation? When Thackeray was writing the great scene in 
which Rawdon Crawley discovers Becky alone with Lord 
Steyne, as he wrote the words: "Even at that moment, she 
admired her husband, strong, victorious, triumphant,' ' he 
flung down his pen, as we are told, and cried out : " By God, 
that's genius!" A stroke of genius it certainly was, and I 
always loved him for saying so. It was so much more human 
and more real to cry out the truth and rejoice in it. Only 
the petty soul would call it vanity and try to pick a flaw in a 
man who was creating lives and characters more real per- 
haps, certainly more lasting, than those among which our 
waking days are spent. No one could have been kinder or 
more generous in appreciation of others, or more sympathetic 
with them, especially with young men, than Dr. Holmes. I 
know from my own experience how more than kindly he al- 
ways was. After I had entered Congress he would write to 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 337 

me about my speeches, and in a way which showed that he 
had read something which I had said, a not over-common 
mark of interest, especially from an old and very distin- 
guished man to a young and quite undistinguished one. 
For my own satisfaction I will give two of his notes to me 
which bring out this very attractive trait in his character: 

296 Beacon Street 
March 14, 1893 

MY DEAR CABOT 

I have just finished reading your speeches which you have 
kindly sent me and for which I return you my sincere thanks. I 
do not often read the pamphlets and books sent me, but I could 
not sit down and thank you, as we all have to in many cases, 
without opening the leaves of the gift we have received. I could 
not do that because you, Cabot Lodge, whose course I have watched 
with pride and interest, were its author. And having once begun 
reading I could not help keeping on. The patriotism, the manly 
sense and eloquent enthusiasm of these truly American addresses 
were like the injection of pure blood from a young man's arteries 
into my old veins. Every sentiment is generous, every aspiration 
is that of one who loves his country and is proud of it. 

I hope the way will be clear before you, that your influence 
may find full scope for action and that the whole country may 
reap a full harvest from your fast ripening talents. 

Believe me 

Faithfully and affectionately 
Yours 

Oliver Wendell Holmes 

296 Beacon Street 

April 9th 1892 

DEAR MR. LODGE 

I write you a few words which only ask for one word in reply. 
Where does your quotation about the "fringy edges of battle" 

come from? 

Always faithfully 
Yours 

O. W. Holmes 



338 EARLY MEMORIES 

In the last he shows not only that he had read the speech, 
but he could not be easy until he knew the author of the 
lines I had quoted, although it seems odd that he should 
not have recognized them as coming from Clough's "Dip- 
sychus." 1 But the eager curiosity in the largest sense, the 
desire to know and learn, went with him to the end. He 
said more than once that he should like to live on because 
he was anxious to know what was going to happen. He 
lived to a ripe age, keeping always his alertness of mind as 
well as his quick sympathy, writing now and again verses 
full of tenderness and feeling, and with the old wit flashing 
up almost to the very last. After his death it seemed as 
if a part of the city itself had gone, when the voice which 
had charmed it for so many years and so long spoken for 
it to the world at large suddenly fell silent. 

Mr. Lowell, the youngest of the famous group, was, of 
course, a familiar figure to me in Cambridge, and a very 
fine and strong figure he was as we students saw him striding 
along with a stout stick in his hand, usually in a rough, short 
jacket and no overcoat, with a very slouch hat on his head. 
But what a noble head it was, with the big beard just turn- 
ing gray, the handsome features, the deep, penetrating eyes, 
and the leonine look, a thought terrifying or, rather, awe- 
inspiring to heedless youth fondly supposed to be in pursuit 
of a liberal education. As I have said, I had enough sense 
to take his course in English literature but not sufficient to 
take also his course on Dante, which I have bitterly re- 
gretted ever since, all the more because those who were wise 
enough to do so were asked to his house, and there he would 
discourse to them of the great poet who covered all Italy 
with his hood. In later years I came to know him quite 

J The lines were: 

"For high deeds haunt not the fringy edges of the fight, 
But the pell-mell of men." 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 339 

well. I recall him and Mrs. Lowell at my sister's house, 
and remember hearing him one summer day after a 
luncheon, at which Dr. Holmes was also present, discourse 
upon the Jews. He was possessed with that subject at the 
time, and he insisted that the Jewish blood was every- 
where; that it ran in all our veins; that Lowell was a cor- 
ruption of Lowe, a Jewish name of the days when the chosen 
people were forced to take the names of animals. He was 
most brilliant and entertaining, if not scientifically sound, 
and, I think, took much satisfaction in his own extrava- 
gances. Here is the dry contemporary record of that day 
by the sea which dwells so happily in my memory : 

Aug. 30—1876. 

Lunched yesterday at G. A. J.'s with Lowell and Holmes. 
Had much talk with the former. He has a mania about Jews, 
believes they are absorbing the power of the world ; have posses- 
sion of the money and the European press etc. The number of 
prominent names of Jewish origin which he cited was astonishing. 

He said Leigh Hunt told him that Shelley looked like a spirit 
just descended from Heaven and about to reascend. 

He said that the first time he ever met Landor, the conver- 
sation turning on Italy, he remarked that he had visited Lan- 
dor's villa at Fiesole. "Ah," said Landor, "a lovely place from 
which that intolerable woman keeps me out." The " intolerable 
woman" was his wife. Lowell said the "Gebir" was more Mil- 
tonic than anything in modern literature. 

Asked Lowell and Holmes who Photius was of whom Macaulay 
speaks. Neither knew. Looked it up and found to my horror 
that the author of the Myriobiblion was the Photius of history, 
the Photius of the Schism. Here was a nice piece cf ignorance 
not to have connected the two as one and the same person. 

The allusion to Photius occurs in the "History of Eng- 
land," when Macaulay, writing of learning at Oxford, 
speaks of "Greek Literature from Homer to Photius." I 
fear that I should not now regard with "horror" a failure 



340 EARLY MEMORIES 

to connect the author of the " Myriobiblion " with the 
famous Photius of the ninth century, who led in the schism 
of the Eastern and Western churches, or regard it as such a 
"piece of ignorance" as I did at twenty-six. It seems to 
me in these days, when studies in the histoiy of the dark 
ages lie so far behind me, a venial forgetfulness. 

For many years while Lowell was in Spain and England 
I saw nothing of him, but after his return I met him fre- 
quently. He dined with us more than once when we lived 
in Mount Vernon Street, and most delightful he was. He 
resembled Dr. Johnson, I think, in liking to have his talk 
out, and there was never better talk than his. He told us 
much of his experiences, and although years, and still more 
sorrow, had aged him and he often seemed sad, yet when he 
was roused and interested there was no abatement in his 
brilliancy and charm. Of all that talk so enjoyed at the 
moment, one little anecdote which he told has always re- 
mained in my memory. He said that when he had just 
arrived in England, Lord Coleridge, who was reputed to be 
the best after-dinner speaker in London, said to him: "You 
will be asked very often to make an after-dinner speech and 
I wish to tell you how such a speech should be made. Select 
your anecdote beforehand. When you are called upon, lead 
up to your anecdote, tell it, go gently away from it and your 
speech is made." It was excellent advice, as sound as it 
was witty, but I felt that the greatest humor in the story 
lay in Lord Coleridge telling Lowell how to make an after- 
dinner speech, for Lowell was a past-master in that art, and 
I have never heard any one on such occasions who even 
approached him. He seemed to combine every quality 
that a speaker should possess. His voice was singularly 
fine and his enunciation, which is rare, was quite perfect, 
with an intonation that cannot be described but which was 
singularly attractive. Many men make clever speeches, 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 341 

full of good points and very telling. Lowell not only had wit 
and humor in abounding measure, but he had also the imag- 
ination of the poet, the literary touch, a finished style, and 
a knowledge of all literature such as very few men, indeed, 
ever possess. I have heard him often in serious addresses 
as well as in the lighter moments of an after-dinner speech, 
and I always listened to him with envious delight. 
Even his slightest words seemed to have a peculiar charm. 
I can see him now on our Commencement day, when he 
spoke of some of the early benefactors of the college of 
whom nothing was known and who have become mere 
names to a grateful posterity. I seem to hear again the 
beautiful voice as he said: "There is William Pennoyer of 
whom we know nothing, except that he comes down to us in 
that most graceful of attitudes with his hand in his pocket." 

The wit which shone and the epigram that sparkled 
through all his writings were generously given out in con- 
versation. He was not a miser and did not hoard up his 
humor, his learning, or his wit. They are also in his letters 
with much more that is profoundly serious. It is to be 
hoped that some day all his letters, in their entirety, will be 
given to the world without being arranged and selected to 
suit the tastes or prejudices of an editor. He was one of 
the best of letter-writers and at a time when that delightful 
art had begun to decline. We should have them all, for we 
desire to know the writer and not the editor. We wish to 
read the letters for their own sake and learn Lowell's real 
thoughts and opinions from year to year and not what 
some one else believed those thoughts and opinions ought to 
have been. 

There was one other poet who belonged also, in his way, 
to the human-rights statesmen in the middle of the century 
whom I knew only slightly, but none the less personally, 
toward the end of his career. In 1884 the defection from 



342 EARLY MEMORIES 

the Republican ranks caused by the nomination of Mr. 
Blaine drew Whittier from his retirement to the defence of 
the party in whose traditions and principles he profoundly 
believed. When that party found itself in real danger of 
defeat he came at once to its support and gave his name as 
vice-president at some of our large meetings and exerted his 
influence in every way in behalf of Mr. Blaine. This brought 
me, as chairman of the Republican State Committee, in 
contact with him, for Whittier was an ally who in those 
days was a tower of strength. He wrote me occasionally 
about political conditions in Essex County and I met him 
frequently. Very plain and simple in person and dress, 
rather silent, and most gentle, he had about him an atmos- 
phere of purity and at the same time of power which one 
felt at once. Beneath the quiet look, the gentle speech, the 
silent manner were the courage and fortitude so character- 
istic of the people called "Quakers." He had all the quali- 
ties of his ancestry, the dauntless spirit obedient only to the 
inner voice, the fearless nature, and the utter indifference 
alike to the physical danger of mob violence and to the hos- 
tile opinion of fashionable society or of those who were fond 
of describing themselves as the "better element." This is 
not the place for literary criticism or for an analysis of 
Whittier's poetry, because I am writing only of the man as 
I remember him. But he was like his poetry, and there 
were many of his poems which I knew by heart and had 
recited at school as many another New England boy had 
done. There was much tenderness and sweetness as well 
as much righteous indignation against wrong in all his 
verse. Although in that as in all else he was simple and 
without pretence, he was a genuine poet. The verse, like 
the man, always rang true. It has seemed to me that he 
came nearer to the popular heart and was more the poet of 
the people than any one else in our literature. Having for 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 343 

a long time held this opinion, I was interested to find a 
wholly disinterested critic, Mr. Andrew Lang, in his "His- 
tory of English Literature," published only a year ago, 
writing as follows : " If we insist that a very young literature 
must produce for inspection her national poet (and Mr. 
Lowell says that foreign critics made this demand very 
early indeed) the poet cannot be Poe and Whitman is hardly 
eligible. Whittier seems so far to be the best candidate 
for the bays." 

"Many admirers of Burns will be eager to confess that 
Whittier's 'Snow-Bound' has merits superior to the Ayr- 
shire ploughman's companion piece, ' The Cotter's Saturday 
Night.' " 

Certain it is that the simple, often artless, verse, fre- 
quently full of vigor or tenderness, touched the hearts of 
those who never saw Whittier, just as the plain, quiet, 
rather austere man, looking like a New England farmer, won 
without effort the affection of those who had the happiness 
to know him. One reason for this, of course, was the quick 
sympathy of the poet's nature. Some years after the Blaine 
campaign, when I was a young congressman in the receipt 
of more kicks than halfpence, Whittier, whom I had not 
seen for a long time, wrote me the following note: 

Amesbury, Mass., 

February 17, 1891 

DEAR FRIEND, 

Let me thank thee for thy manly speech. It has the ring and 
is worthy of the best days of Massachusetts— of Webster and 
Sumner and John Quincy Adams. I am truly thy friend. 

John G. Whittier. 

I was not misled at the moment by the generous overpraise 
of a now quite forgotten speech any more than I am to-day. 
It never occurred to me that I deserved to be classed with 



344 EARLY MEMORIES 

the three men he mentioned. If such an idea had crossed 
my mind at any time I should not print the note here, but 
then as now those kind words, so helpful as they were to me, 
touched my heart when I read them, and in their warm 
sympathy they show why, like so many others to whom that 
firm and gentle voice has spoken, whether from the written 
paper or the printed page, I hold Whittier in affectionate 
remembrance. 

So the remarkable literary group of the middle of the 
nineteenth century in New England ends. But there were 
two others much younger than these but older than I, with 
whom I was thrown in the days of which I am writing, 
whom I may venture to call my friends, and to whose friend- 
ship and kindness I look back with many thoughts of happy 
days and pleasant intercourse. One is William D. Ho wells, 
in regard to whom it is a happiness to be able to use the 
present tense. The other was Thomas Bailey Aldrich, who 
died prematurely at the age of the Psalmist, still, as it 
seemed, with that flush of youth upon him which it was his 
happy fortune always to retain. 

I met them both at the outset of my career in literature, 
to use a large term, simply because it is most convenient, 
for a very small and modest performance. They were in 
succession editors of the Atlantic Monthly, and they were 
good enough in that capacity to accept some writings of 
mine for publication. In this way I came to know them 
well, I think, and with much affectionate regard on one side 
at least. Mr. Howells I knew first. He lived for many 
years in Cambridge and Boston, and, after I had made his 
acquaintance, editorially, I saw much of him in other ways. 
Then as now he was a most accomplished man. He had a 
very quiet and gentle manner, coupled with a great deal of 
dry humor, and very strong and definite opinions upon 
many subjects outside of literature. He was a thorough 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 345 

Republican in politics; but in politics as well as in literature, 
he had marked radical tendencies which I found most in- 
teresting and suggestive. In the one case he leaned toward 
what is usually called socialism; in the other he was a cham- 
pion of realism, just then veiy much pressed as the one true 
theory of art, and advocated on the basis of being a revolt 
against romanticism. A reaction against the romanticism 
which had driven out the formalism and convention,!] 
methods of the eighteenth century was sure to come, espe- 
cially when the romantic movement had run to extremes 
and had degenerated very often into sentimentality as is 
apt to happen in all great movements in literature and art. 
But the realism so fashionable and so much lauded during 
the latter half of the last century was not infrequently quite 
as unreasoning and violent as the theoiy and practice which 
it sought to overthrow. Its most conspicuous professors, 
in Europe at least, in their revolt from the unreal, rushed to 
the other extreme, and apparently would have us suppose 
that a true picture of life is to be found only in the gutter, 
the brothel, or the jail. They mistook a part for the whole 
quite as completely as the worst of those whom they aimed 
to overthrow. The truth is that the greatest romanticists 
have also been the greatest realists. The imagination of the 
highest genius goes hand in hand with the most complete 
realism. Homer and Dante, and Shakespeare, greatest of 
poets, have a realism, that is a truth to the eternal qualities 
of human nature, which no professed and exclusive realist 
has ever approached. And no realist of genuine literary 
worth ever existed who had not in him a strong imagination 
and a touch of romance. Mr. Howells schooled himself to 
write in the most realistic vein, and to depict the various 
commonplaces of daily life with the utmost truth, and with 
great success, as he amply proved by such books as "The 
Rise of Silas Lapham," "The Lady of the Aroostook," and 



346 EARLY MEMORIES 

many others. But he had abundant imagination as well as 
the touch of the poet, without which he could not have suc- 
ceeded in such ample measure. One summer he passed at 
Nahant, where he occupied an old place with gardens fallen 
to decay and a "belvedere," a remnant of the romantic 
times, which, half ruinous, still overhung the sea, and 
watched the waves sweep back and forth and the tides crawl 
in and out across a wide expanse of shining sand. When I 
went to see him we talked about the old garden and the 
"belvedere" and presently a book came forth which was born 
of his imagination, to which the forsaken garden by the sea 
and the old summer-house had appealed. It was a charm- 
ing story, one of his best, I thought, and it seemed to me 
pure romance of the finest kind. He talked of it in a half- 
apologetic way, as I thought, but "c'etait plus fort que lui" 
— the imagination when once awakened could not be curbed 
by any theory of realism. I have, however, no intention of 
discussing the somewhat large question of realism and ro- 
manticism in literature, which in its essence has a good deal 
about it of the conventional shield with two sides, and yet 
always the same shield. Still less do I mean to analyze the 
delightful art and writings of Mr. Howells, although I have 
read all his books and criticisms with much pleasure and in- 
struction. My thought here is of Mr. Howells himself; the 
scholar, the man of letters, the author already distinguished; 
who was so helpful and sympathetic to the quite undistin- 
guished and unknown young man who wished to publish 
an occasional article in the Atlantic Monthly. The debt of 
gratitude for his goodness to me in encouraging my attempts 
to write, and for his admitting me to his friendship, is what 
I wish to record here, however imperfect and inadequate the 
expression may be. 

Of Mr. Aldrich, his successor in the Atlantic editorship, as 
it happened, I saw much more, for he never deserted Boston 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 347 

for New York, as was the case with Mr. Ho wells. He was 
equally kind to me in my capacity as a contributor, and in 
addition we became very warm friends. His official sanctum 
was in a little outlying room at the back of the old houses 
on Park Street, which had been converted into offices for 
Houghton, Mifflin & Co., the owners and publishers of 
the Atlantic. Through a circuitous path and up a winding 
staircase this room was reached by those who were per- 
mitted to enter it. It looked out over the old Granary 
Burying Ground, lying peacefully among the great buildings 
which surrounded it on three sides, and with the crowd and 
traffic of Tremont Street passing it on the other. One might 
say that this was not a particularly cheerful prospect. Yet 
it was none the less a very pleasant one. It was an ancient 
burial-place, to use the words of the statute, and was no 
longer, or only very rarely, used for interment. The grave- 
stones were of the plain gray slate preferred by our ancestors, 
the few more stately memorials were those known as table 
tombs, and the only monument at all conspicuous was the 
simple granite shaft in commemoration of the parents of 
Benjamin Franklin. Many of the fathers of the hamlet, 
many of the eminent men of past times, were there buried. 
It was as utterly different as could well be imagined from the 
sprawling stone-cutters' yards, glaring with white marble 
and polished granite, accentuated by monuments and figures 
of every variety of tasteless ugliness, which now serve for 
cemeteries. The sunlight fell warmly through the tall elms 
upon the quiet graves, and when the window was open the 
city's voice came to us in a subdued murmur as if it was 
lowered and hushed out of reverence to the dead, who lay 

between. 

I fell into the habit of pausing at this agreeable room in 
the morning when I had occasion to go down-town, and there 
I used to sit and chat with Mr. Aldrich. He was an active, 



348 EARLY MEMORIES 

efficient, and most successful editor, but he always seemed 
to have time to spare, and he never made me feel that I was 
interfering with his work. Realizing very fully that he was 
a busy man, I was, I think, careful never to take advantage 
of his good-nature, although it was difficult to tear one's 
self away from that charming companionship. We talked 
about everything: "Shakespeare and the Musical Glasses," 
" Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax and Cabbages andKings," 
everything in the heavens above and on the earth beneath. 
There was never a more delightful talker. He had wit and 
humor in high degree, remarkable power of epigrammatic 
statement, a whimsical fancy, an intense love of mere fun 
and jest, and behind it all deep seriousness and profound 
conviction in regard to all things which were really important. 
His criticisms on literature, his love of art and beauty in 
every form, were as remarkable as his inexhaustible clever- 
ness and his skill in narration no matter how slight the sub- 
ject. He told me much of his earlier days in New York, 
and I remember especially an account he gave me of his 
narrow escape from the mob of the draft riot, where the per- 
vasive humor and light touch seem to enhance rather than 
disguise the peril he had been in and the black doings of 
those evil days. Of our talks at that time, as is the case 
with so many others, I have kept, alas, no record. They 
passed like the joys of a midsummer day spent by the ocean's 
edge and left only the memory of a time filled with sunshine 
and light, with warmth and happiness. 

One example of his quickness in repartee comes up to 
me out of the past. He gave a dinner to Matthew Arnold 
when the latter was in this country. Mr. Arnold sat on 
his right hand, Dr. Holmes on his left. The conversation 
turned on savages and cannibals, and Arnold said that he 
often wondered what he should do under such disagreeable 
circumstances if he happened to find himself among them. 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 349 

" Why, pick an acquaintance/' said Aldrich. The reply was 
so like one of his own that it is said to have depressed Dr. 
Holmes with regret that he had not thought of it himself. 
Some one, I suppose, will now arise and point out that the 
joke was made by Menander, if not earlier, but it struck 
me at the time as new and good and very characteristic 
of Aldrich's extreme readiness. 

To Aldrich I also owed the opportunity of knowing Edwin 
Booth, who was one of his most intimate friends. Booth 
had settled in Boston and had taken an attractive old house 
on Chestnut Street, with the end to the street and the front 
door on the side, opening upon a pleasant grass-plot adorned 
then with a little fountain and a small conservatory at the 
back. I went there to breakfast one morning with Aldrich 
and Laurence Hutton. For years Booth had been one of 
my great admirations on the stage, and I was eager to know 
him. He did not disappoint me. He was still veiy hand- 
some and romantic-looking, but with an expression of in- 
effaceable sadness, for his life had been filled with sorrows. 
He had charming maimers, veiy quiet and gentle. Although 
he talked but little he was veiy sympathetic and was a most 
attractive host. I breakfasted there again with Edmund 
Gosse, who had brought me letters and had dined with me 
the night before. Mr. Gosse I found most delightful, and 
many years afterwards I had the pleasure of renewing our 
acquaintance in London when I dined with him one Sunday 
at his house. 

Aldrich was also an admirable critic and I learned much 
from him, but he was prone to criticise his own works, and 
he was so fastidious that, unlike most writers, after his 
place was made and his success and fame attained he wrote 
less and less. He found it much harder to satisfy himself 
than to gratify the public. He has left poems so charming 
that one always is disposed to complain that there are not 



350 EARLY MEMORIES 

more of them. He always reminded me of Gray, whose 
standard was so high and who was so hard to please that he 
would never go beyond two or three masterpieces, and even 
about those he had doubts. 

Mr. Aldrich always seemed the very embodiment of life, 
both physical and intellectual, and I little thought that the 
day was ever to come when I should be one of those who 
were chosen to bear his pall. I saw him constantly as long as 
I lived in Boston, where for a time we had adjoining houses. 
When I went to Congress we were of necessity separated in 
winter and our summer homes were far apart. But when- 
ever we met he was always the same, always cheerful, 
abounding in wit, kind, sympathetic, with the same capacity 
for indignation, breaking out in winged words against every- 
thing that was mean, wrong, or unworthy. So that, little as 
I saw him in the later years, he remained one of the poten- 
tialities which are often so much to us, and my affection and 
admiration went with him always, undimmed until the end 
came all too soon. 

Thus far, in speaking of the men whom I knew, I have, 
with few exceptions, written only of those known to a larger 
world than that which was bounded by the limits of Boston 
or of Massachusetts. But there are many other figures 
that rise up before me as I recall those happy years which 
stretch from the closing gates of Harvard to the opening 
doors of public life. "Old faces look upon me, old forms 
go trooping past," and I wish I could interest others in 
them all as they interested me, to whose happiness and en- 
joyment they so largely contributed. That I cannot is 
wholly my own fault and misfortune. "Had I the pen of 
a G. P. R. James or a Sir Archibald Alison," to borrow 
Thackeray's phrase, no doubt I could do it. The character 
and life of any man, however obscure, is of profound interest 
could we but know it aright and display it to the world; 



PUBLIC MEN AND MEN OF LETTERS 351 

but it requires the hand of a master to tell the story and 
paint the picture. Without the touch of the humorist, the 
poet, the creator, one's own memories of those whom the 
reader does not know cannot be communicated, and the 
effort fades into a catalogue unillumined by the light of 
fancy or imagination. It seems to me that the friends with 
whom I lived my daily life in those years, whose thoughts 
and interests I shared, were not only delightful companions 
but clever men of much accomplishment, lovers of books, 
active in mind and body, living eagerly the life of their 
time. I am sure that I have never met any men who formed 
a more agreeable society or one better and pleasanter to 
live with. I must pass them over for the most part in silence, 
although they formed a large part of my life and had a deep 
influence upon me. Some were the friends of school and 
college who have found inadequate allusion in these pages. 
Some were older men with whom I came in contact, perhaps 
more than some of my contemporaries, for I always liked to 
meet and know my seniors. But here I must reluctantly 
pause where early memories begin to merge in those of a later 
time. In entering public life I came upon a broader field and 
into relations with many men of whom there is no mention 
made in this volume, men who played a large part and had in 
their degree an influence upon the history which they helped 
to make. But all that is another story which at some future 
day, if time and strength permit, I shall perhaps try to tell. 



INDEX 



INDEX 



Abbott, Jacob, books about boys, 68-69 

Abbott, Judge, counsel for Rice kid- 
nappers, 78. 

Adams, Brooks. 274-275; Bancroft's al- 
lusion to, 320. 

Adams, Charles Francis, reply to Eng- 
lishmen about the fighting of the South- 
erners, 127; directions to Dr. Ellis 
about his father, 271; member of 
Wednesday Evening Club, 273; re- 
ply about Federalists, 274; personal 
appearance, 297; character and qual- 
ities, 298; place in history, 299; let- 
ters from, 300-301. 

Adams, Henry, his success as professor, 
186-187; goes with H. C. Lodge to 
Salerno, 187; letter of advice from, 
238; offers H. C. Lodge assistant 
editorship of North American Review, 
240-241; course in Anglo-Saxon law, 
263; anecdote of Sumner, 277; as a 
talker, 330. 

Adams, John Quincy, description of 
visit to New York, 1844, 271-273; his 
account of his speech at dinner, 273. 

Adams, Miss Mary, 147. 

Africa steamship, 138. 

Agassiz, Louis, home at Nahant, 33; 
early recollections of, 54. 

Aldrich, Thomas Bailey, as a talker, 330; 
succeeds Howells as editor of the At- 
lantic, 346: his office in Park Street, 
347; his charm and wit in conversa- 
tion, 348-349; his friendship with 
Edwin Booth, 349; as a critic; his 
character, 349-350. 

Allen, John, of Mississippi, danger of too 
much jesting by public men, 332. 

Allston, Washington, classmate of Henry 
Cabot, 43. 

Amadeo, Prince, 177. 

American Academy of Arts and Sciences, 
274. 

Amory, Francis I., schoolmate at Mr. 
Dixwell's, 83. 

Anderson, Professor, juggler, 101. 

Andrew, Governor John A., in the war 
time, 116-117; account of and im- 
pression made by, 292. 

Antietam, visit with McKinley to, 121. 

Appleton, Thomas G., comment on 
Sumner's anecdote, 281. 

Arch, Joseph, visit to Sumner, 284-285. 

Argyle, Duke of, description of, 171-172. 

Arnaux, Doctor, French teacher, 21. 



Arnold, Matthew, Aldrich's dinner to, 

348. 
Aspinwall, Colonel, survivor of the " War 

of '12," 249. 



Balfour, Arthur J., 150; as a talker, 330. 

Baltimore, attack on Massachusetts 
troops in, 117-118; reception of troops 
in, 1898, 119. 

Bancroft, George, house in Winthrop 
Place, 18; early days in Massachu- 
setts politics, 314; in Polk's cabinet, 
315; his history of the United States, 
315-316; his old age in Washington, 
316; letters from, 317-321; as a rose 
grower, 322. 

Banks, N. P., recommends purchase of 
Hancock House, 63. 

Barberini, Palazzo, home of the Storys, 
162. 

Barrett, Lawrence, as Mark Antony, 92; 
passenger on Africa, 140. 

Bartlett, General, 123. 

Bartol, Reverend Cyrus, anecdote of, 
105. 

Beadle, dime novels, 103. 

Bedford Street, 15. 

Beecher, Henry Ward, at Irving dinner, 
255. 

Bell and Everett, 114. 

Benjamin, Judah P., Sir Roundell Palm- 
er's opinion of, 256. 

Bigelow, George T., opinion in Rice case, 
73. 

Bigelow, Henry J., description of, 56-57; 
opinion of bathing after eating, 84. 

Bigelow, Melville, 251. 

Bigelow, William Sturgis, helps to push 
over statue, 14; treasure cave at 
Nahant, 37; at Mrs. Parkman's, 65; 
account of our education, 83; good 
shot, 86; behind scenes at Boston 
Theatre, 97; seeing Artemus Ward, 
101; with H. C. Lodge in New York, 
109; Porcupine Club, 274. 

Bismarck, Prince, Motley's account of, 
307. 

Blake, Anna (Mrs. Henry Cabot), de- 
scription of, 7-8. 

Blake, Charles, counsel for Rice kid- 
nappers, 78. 

Blake, Joshua, house in Winthrop Place, 
18. 

Blake, Robert, 7. 



355 



356 



INDEX 



Blake, William, 7. 

Blake family, account of, 7. 

Blitz, Signor, 34. 

Booth, Edwin, as Cassius, 92; as Sir 
Giles Overreach, 98; unsurpassed as 
Hamlet, 191 ; breakfast at his house 
in Boston, 349. 

Boston, eighteenth century atmosphere 
of, 16; population of, 1850-1860, 17; 
area of, 1850-1860, 18; character of, 
1850-1860, 19; nearness to country, 
1850-1867, 20; sleighing in, 95; great 
fire of, 1872, 241-243. 

Boston Athenaeum, 275. 

Boston Museum, account of plays at, 
92-94. 

Boston Theatre, origin and description 
of, 95-96; ball for Prince of Wales 
at, 100. 

Bourne, Mrs. (mother of Mrs. Henry 
Rice), supplies money for abduction, 
76; employs counsel for kidnappers, 
78; furnishes bail, 79. 

Bradish, Luther, 273. 

Brattle Street Church, account of, 105. 

Brattle, Thomas, 5. 

Brooks, Preston, assault on Sumner, 45; 
denounced by Burlingame, 46; de- 
clines Burlingame's challenge, 47. 

Bruce, Lady Charlotte, 171. 

Bryce, James, 150. 

Burgess, Edward, schoolmate at Mr. 
Dixwell's, 84. 

Burlingame, Anson, denounces Brooks's 
assault on Sumner, 46; accepts 
Brooks's challenge, 47 ; impression 
made by, 294. 

Butler, General B. F., story of Choate, 
53. 

Cabot, George (uncle of H. C. Lodge), 
friend of Bishop Fitzpatrick, 56. 

Cabot, George, account of, 8-9; Mr. 
Morrison's description of, 9; Mr. 
Webster's opinion of, 10; Mr. Chan- 
ning's description of, 10-13; visited 
by Washington at Beverly, 41; let- 
ter to Washington, 42; memoir of, 
his destruction of letters, 264. 

Cabot, Henry, 7 ; his pedigree and descent 
from Francis Higginson, 8; description 
of, 40-43 ; friendship with Webster, 43- 
44; takes H. C. Lodge to see "Julius 
Caesar," 91; death of, 109; leaves Whig 
party, 113. 

Cabot, Mrs. Henry (See Blake, Anna), 
letter from Prescott, 313. 

Cabot, Samuel, house in Winthrop 
Place, 18. 

Cabot, Samuel, schoolmate, 65. 

Cabot, Stephen, at Cooper Street Ar- 
mory, 122. 

Cabot family, account of, 8. 

Canning, George, 149. 

Canrobert, Marshal, 156. 

Carnegie, Andrew, 209. 

" Cataract of the Ganges," 97. 

Cent-Garde, 156-157. 



Chadwick, Frank, schoolmate at Mr. 
Sullivan's, 66; schoolmate at Dix- 
well's, 83; run down in boat with H. 
C. Lodge, 85-86; good shot, 86. 

Channing, William Ellery, description of 
George Cabot, 10-13. 

Chaucer, Geoffrey, 8. 

Choate, Rufus, anecdote about, 14; 
house in Winthrop Place, 18; descrip- 
tion of, and anecdotes, 50-53. 

Clark, Bishop of Rhode Island, story of 
Paran Stevens, 90. 

Coleridge, Lord, 256-257; his advice to 
Lowell, 340. 

"Colleen Bawn," 93. 

Coolidge, Jefferson, 273. 

Cox, S. S., danger of too much jesting by 
public men, 331. 

Cunard Company, treatment of pas- 
sengers, 139. 

Curtis, George Ticknor, Evarts's story 
Of, 256. 

Curtis, George William, describes Na- 
hant, 32; asks H. C. Lodge to put 
lectures into book for Harpers, 268. 

Cushing, Caleb, at dinner at Sumner's, 
description of, 282-283. 

Cushman, Charlotte, description of, 
175-176. 

Dalton, Charles, 273. 

Davenport, E. L., as Brutus, 92; as 
Sir Giles Overreach, 98. 

Davis, Charles Henry (Rear Admiral), 
father of Constant Davis, 135; men- 
tioned in letter from Story, 165; serv- 
ices and scientific attainments, 194; 
manners, 195; scholarship, 196; na- 
ture and character, 197; letter from 
J. L. Motley about, 197-198; friend- 
ship of Dr. Holmes for Admiral and 
Mrs. Davis, 335. 

Davis, Charles Henry (midshipman), 
159. 

Davis, Constant, goes to Europe with H. 
C. Lodge, character and description 
of, 135-137. 

Debs, Eugene, predictions as to capital- 
ism, 213 ff. 

Denver, John, walks tight-rope at Na- 
hant, 33. 

Devens, Judge Charles, examines H. C. 
Lodge for admission to bar, 247. 

Diaz, Porfirio, dinner to, 261-262. 

Dickens, Charles, his readings, and 
criticism of, 191-193. 

Dixwell, Epes Sargent (schoolmaster), 
description of, 80; last three weeks 
at school of, 178. 

Dodge, Miss Abigail (Gail Hamilton), 
attack on memoir of George Cabot, 
268-269. 

Dungeon Rock (Lynn), 36. 

Elective system at Harvard, 184-187. 

Eliot, Charles W., becomes president of 
Harvard, 180; letter to H. C. Lodge 
on giving up lectureship, 267. 



INDEX 



357 



Eliot, Samuel, sells his house to J. E. 
Lodge, 59; library given to him by 
friends, 60-61; letter to J. E. Lodge. 
61-62. 

Ellerton, Elizabeth, 4. 

Ellerton, John Lodge, proposes change 
of name to H. C. Lodge, 4; descrip- 
tion of, 151; reconciliation with 
brother, 152. 

Ellerton family, account of, 4. 

Ellis, Dr. George, knowledge of local his- 
tory, 270; anecdote of Webster, 270- 
271; description of visit to New York 
with John Quincy Adams, 271-273. 

Ellsworth, Colonel, shooting of, 119-120. 

Emerson, Ralph Waldo, verses about 
Nahant, 32; remark about Samuel 
Hoar, 248; appearance, 328; last 
time at Historical Society, 328-329; 
at dinner in 1874, anecdote of, 329. 

Endicott, William C.,Jr., finds letter of 
George Cabot, 41. 

Endicott, Judge William C, 251. 

England, policy toward the United 
States, 148-150. 

"Essex Junior," 274. 

Essex Street, 15. 

Eugfinie, Empress, 156. 

Evarts, William M., personal appear- 
ance, 254; anecdote of at election, 255; 
at Irving dinner, 255; at dinner of H. 
C. Lodge in Boston, 256; Washington 
throwing dollar across the Rappahan- 
nock, 250-257; State Department 
anecdotes of, 257; reply to Mr. Hoar, 
character and ability, 258; as a 
talker, 330. 

Everett, Edward, speech about Monitor 
and Merrimac, 122. 

Fette, schoolmaster at Nahant, 73-76. 

Fitzpatrick, Bishop John, 56. 

Florence, William, at Irving dinner, 255. 

Forney, John W., flattery of Sumner, 282. 

Forrest, Edwin, as Metamora, 100; as 
Richelieu and Hamlet, 190-191. 

France in 1866, 154; the army, 157-158. 

Freeman, Edward, dinner to, 251; de- 
scription of, 252. 

Gambetta, Sumner's anecdote of, 281. 

Gladstone, William E., 148. 

Gosse, Edmund, in Boston and London, 
349. 

Granary Burying Ground, description 
of, 347. 

Grant, Mrs. Patrick, 72. 

Gray, Horace, anecdote of Governor 
Andrew, 116-117; kindness to and 
talks with H. C. Lodge, 250-251; Jus- 
tice of United States Supreme Court, 
253; character and appearance on 
bench, 253-254. 

Gray, John C, 250. 

Gray, Russell, treasure-seeking, 38; 
schoolmate at Mr. Sullivan's, 64; Por- 
cupine Club and Boston Athenaeum, 
274-275. 



Greene, Doctor Samuel, 270. 
Grey, Sir Edward, 150. 
Guild, Mrs. S. E., 72. 

Hackett, J. H., as Falstaflf, 99. 

Hamley, General, 147-148. 

Hancock House, account of, 63. 

Harcourt, Lady, named for aunt of H. 
C. Lodge, 303; at Nahant, 308. 

Harcourt, Louis, 150. 

Harrison, President, appoints Allen Rice 
as minister to Russia, 79. 

Hawthorne, Nathaniel, 303. 

Hay, John, as a talker, 330. 

Healey, Father, 56. 

"Herrmann," juggler, 101. 

Higginson, Francis, 8; his character, 13. 

Higginson, Thomas Wentworth, descrip- 
tion of cosmopolitanism, 205; remarks 
on Gail Hamilton's criticism, 269. 

Hill, Thomas, president of Harvard, 180. 

Hoar, Judge Ebenezer Rockwood, de- 
scription and anecdotes of, 247-250; 
his remarks on funeral of Wendell 
Phillips, 294. 

Hoar, George F., story as to Francis 
Higginson, 8; Evarts's reply to, 258. 

Hoar, Leonard (president of Harvard), 
248. 

Hoar, Samuel (father of Ebenezer R. 
Hoar), Emerson's remark about, 248. 

Holmes, Dr. Oliver Wendell, describes 
dynamometer, 329; as a talker, 330- 
331 ; effect of his reputation as humor- 
ist and wit, 331-332; a great writer, 
332-333; his personal appearance, 
333; at the Atlantic dinner, 333-334; 
anecdotes of him at Nahant, 335; 
character of the vanity with which ho 
was charged, 336; letters from, 337; 
his last days, 338. 

Holmes, Mrs. Oliver Wendell, cousin of 
Mrs. J. E. Lodge, 333. 

Holmes, Oliver Wendell (Justice), his 
conversation with General Hamley, 
147-148; anecdote of, 179. 

Hosmer, Miss Harriet, 171. 

Howe, Dr. G. S., appearance of and im- 
pression made by, 293. 

Howells, William D., his book, "A Boy's 
Town," 68; editor of Atlantic Monthly, 
344; description of, 344-345; summer 
at Nahant, 346; kindness of, 346. 

Hubbard, Frank, schoolmate at Mr. 
Sullivan's, 66; with H. C. Lodge in 
Canada and the Adirondacks, 179. 

Irving, Henry, dinner in New York to, 255. 

Jackson, negro servant of Mr. Rice, 73. 

Jackson, Frank, schoolmate at Mr. Sul- 
livan's, 66. 

James, George Abbot (brother-in-law of 
H. C. Lodge), 135. 

"Jeanie Deans," 93. 

Jefferson, Joseph, opinion of acoustics at 
Boston Theatre, 96. 



358 



INDEX 



Kean, Charles, as an actor, 191. 

Kean, Mrs. (Ellen Tree), as an actress, 
191. 

Kemble, Mrs. Fanny, reads to children 
at Mrs. Parkman's, 22; letter to 
Henry Greville about Nahant, 33; 
description of, in public reading, 191. 

Kenil worth, 143. 

Kidd, Captain, belief in his buried treas- 
ure, 36-37. 

Kirkland, Elizabeth Cabot, description 
of, 44-45. 

Kirkland, John Thornton, 44. 

Lamar, L. Q. C, eulogy of Sumner, 
48. 

Lang, Andrew, opinion of Whittier, 343. 

Langdell, Professor C. C, his work in the 
Harvard Law School, 246. 

Langdon, John, 5. 

Langdon, Mary (Mrs. Giles Lodge), 5; 
portrait of, 7. 

Langdon, Samuel, president of Harvard 
College, 5. 

Langdon family, account of, 5. 

Lansdowne, Lord, 150. 

Laughlin, J. Lawrence, 263. 

Lawrence, Massachusetts, trial of Rice 
kidnappers at, 77-78. 

Lawrence, William (Bishop), schoolmate 
at Mr. Dixwell's, 84. 

Leamington, 142-143. 

Lee, Harry, schoolmate, 65. 

Lee, Colonel Henry, helps H. C. Lodge 
on memoir of George Cabot, 265; de- 
scription and character of, 266-267. 

Lincoln, Abraham, assassination of, 129; 
his place in history, 190; his opinions 
as to property, 215-216. 

Lind, Jenny, 153. 

Locker, Frederick, 171. 

Lodge, Adam, description of, 1'52. 

Lodge, Anna Cabot (Mrs. J. E. Lodge), 
7; character, and love of reading, 39; 
friend of William Story, 162; Story's 
feeling about, 165; Wendell Phillips's 
opinion of, 285; letters from Bancroft 
to, 317-321; cousin of Mrs. O. W. 
Holmes, 333. 

Lodge, Elizabeth Cabot (Mrs. James), 
40. 

Lodge, Francis, 4. 

Lodge, Giles, birth, 4; comes to West 
Indies, 4; escapes from Santo Do- 
mingo, 4-5; settles in Boston and mar- 
ries, 5; death, 5; appearance and char- 
acter, 5-6; his cane and book, 6-7. 

Lodge, Henry Cabot, birth and birth- 
place, 14; garden, 15; events at period 
of birth, 16; playing in gardens and 
yards, sports on the common, 19; sent 
to Mrs. Parkman's school, 20; studies 
at first school, 21; hears Mrs. Kemble 
read, 22; fondness for sea, 22; his 
father's counting-room and ships, 22- 
23; getting molasses from casks, 24- 
25; stamp-collecting, 25-26; at the 
shipyard in Medford, 26; companion- 



ship of his father, 27-32; books read 
as a boy, 29-32; love of the sea at 
Nahant, 35; hunting for treasure, 36; 
treasure-cave at Nahant, 37; treasure- 
seeking in Boston, 38; earliest recol- 
lections of Sumner, 45; sees Sumner on 
his return to Boston after Brooks's 
assault, 48-50; recollections of Rufus 
Choate, 50-53; recollections of J. L. 
Motley, 53-54; recollections of Long- 
fellow, 54; recollections of Agassiz, 54; 
recollections of Benjamin Peirce, 55; 
recollections of Bishop Fitzpatrick, 56; 
recollections of Henry Bigelow, 56-57; 
heroes of boyhood and the Hcenan- 
Sayers fight, 58; leaves Winthrop 
Place for 31 Beacon Street, 59; de- 
scription of Beacon Street quarter and 
31 Beacon Street, 62; the Hancock 
House, 63; leaves Mrs. Parkman's 
school and goes to that of Mr. Sulli- 
van, 64; companions at Mrs. Park- 
man's school, 65; companions at Mr. 
Sullivan's school, 66; boys and boy 
nature, 67-72; friendship with Allen 
Rice, 72; witnesses abduction of 
Allen Rice, 73-74; identifies one of 
the kidnappers at jail, 75-76; fails to 
identify third man, 76; witness before 
Grand Jury, 77; witness at Lawrence, 
77-78; kindness of Judge Lord to, 78; 
friendship with Allen Rice in later 
years, 79; leaves Mr. Sullivan's and 
goes to Mr. Dixwell's school, 81 ; con- 
duct and studies there, 82-83; edu- 
cation in other directions, 83-84; 
swimming, 84-85; sailing and run 
down by the Idler, 85-86; bird-nesting 
and shooting, 86; other sports, 86-87; 
learning to ride and first horse, 87-88; 
at Newport, 87-88 ; first time at thea- 
tre, 90; the Ravels, 91; "Julius 
Caesar," 91; sees Davenport, Booth, 
Barrett, and McCullough in "Julius 
Caesar," 92; goes to Boston Museum, 
93; plays "Colleen Bawn " in play- 
room, 93 ; sale of Boston Museum prop- 
erties, 94; behind scenes at Boston 
Theatre, 97; plays and actors there, 
97-100; sees jugglers and Artemus 
Ward, 100; love of reading, 102-104; 
reading in church, 104-106; first visit 
to New York theatres, 109-110; ad- 
venture at Trenton Falls, 109; 
Niagara, 110; earliest impressions of 
politics, 113; campaign of 1860, 
113-115; firing on Sumter, 115; recol- 
lections of Governor Andrew, 116; the 
attack on the troops in Baltimore, 117- 
118; thirty-seven years later, 118-119; 
the shooting of Ellsworth, 119; the first 
Bull Run, Island Number 10, Donelson, 
and Port Royal, 120; visit to Antietam 
with McKinley, 121 ; the Monitor and 
Mcrrimac and the representation of 
their fight in Boston, 121 ; Mr. Ever- 
ett's speech, 122; Vicksburg, Gettys- 
burg, Sherman, Sheridan, and the fall 



INDEX 



359 



of Richmond, 122; effect of war on 
mind of, 123-125; effect of war on 
boys of that period, 125; opinions and 
convictions left by war, 126; hears of 
Lincoln's assassination, 129; feeling 
toward Southern men and Northern 
sympathizers, 130-131; hostility to- 
ward England, 131-132; one side 
right in the war, the other wrong, 133- 
134; goes to Europe, 1866-1867, 135; 
the voyage, 138-139; arrival at Liver- 
pool, 141; sights in Liverpool, 142; 
Leamington, 142-143; Warwick and 
Stratford, 143; goes to London, 144; 
goes to Mount Felix, 145; occupations 
at Mount Felix, 146; account of 
General Hamley, 147-148; feeling 
about English scenery, 150-151; goes 
to opera and theatre, and hears Jenny 
Lind in London, 153; on the Conti- 
nent, Switzerland and Paris, 154; 
sees sights in Paris, 155; grand review, 
155-156; sees Emperor and Empress, 
156; sees Offenbach's operas, 158; 
takes French lessons, 160; journey to 
Rome, 161; winter in Rome, 162; 
first hunt in Rome, 172-174; incidents 
of hunting, 174-175; meeting with 
Charlotte Cushman, 175-176; the 
last run, lames horse, 176-177; to 
Naples and Venice, 177; to Vienna, 
178; arrival at home, 178; examina- 
tions for and entrance to Harvard, 
178-179; fishing and shooting in 
Canada and the Adirondacks, 179; 
Harvard at time of entrance, 180-181; 
account of "mock parts," 181-182; 
reads them, 182; the last to do so, 183; 
effect of elective system, 184-187; 
enjoyment of Harvard, 187; athletics, 
188; college theatricals, 188-189; 
goes on as "supe" at theatres, anec- 
dote, 189-190; theatre-going while at 
college, 190-191; hears Mrs. Kemble 
read, 191; and Dickens, 191-193; re- 
sult of going to Harvard, 193; becomes 
engaged, 194; marries and sails for 
Europe, 199; retrospect and contrast, 
200; changes in communication and 
transportation, 201; changes in en- 
vironment, 202; society of his youth, 
203; prevalence of English habits, 
203-205; effect of Civil War and im- 
migration, 205-206; development of 
great wealth, 206-208; fortunes in his 
youth and old families, 208; the mod- 
ern American plutocrat, 208-210; law- 
lessness of modern plutocrat, 211; 
effect of wealth on politics, 212; change 
of popular view as to property in the 
United States, 213-216; alterations 
in society, 216; character of conversa- 
tion. 216-217; society in Boston dur- 
ing youth of, 217-218; restlessness of 
society to-day, 218-219; its effect on 
style, 219-220; on sculpture, 220; on 
painting, 220-221; loss of form, 221- 
222; incoherence of thought, 222-223; 



meaning of these changes, 224; in 
Europe again, 225; sees Passion play, 
226; auction of imperial effects, 228; 
description of Paris in 1871, 229-231; 
goes to Germany and Italy, 231-232; 
friendship with Simpson, 232-233; 
his effect upon, 234-236; goes to Paris 
and The Hague, 237; in England and 
the Low Countries, 237-238; asks ad- 
vice of Henry Adams, 238; works at 
early Germanic law, 239; at Norfolk, 
Virginia, 240; offered assistant editor- 
ship of the North American Review, 
240-241 ; description of the Boston fire, 
241-242; visits among the poor, 242- 
243; work on North American Review, 
245; first articles in North American 
Review, 245; enters law school, 245- 
246; examined for the bar, 247; 
friendship with Judge Gray, 250-254; 
friendship with and anecdotes of 
Evarts, 254-258; friendship with and 
account of Francis E. Parker, 259-262; 
essay on Anglo-Saxon law and degree 
of Ph.D., 263-264; begins memoir of 
George Cabot, 264; friendship with 
and account of Henry Lee, 265-267; 
lectures on American history at Har- 
vard, and letter from President Eliot, 
267; lectures at Lowell Institute and 
publication of lectures as book, 268; 
writes for Nation and Atlantic Monthly, 
261; elected to Massachusetts His- 
torical Society, 270; elected to Wednes- 
day Evening Club, 273; elected to 
American Academy of Arts and Sci- 
ences, 274 ; account of Porcupine Club 
and its members, 274-275; friendship 
with and account of Sumner, 276; 
meets Henry Wilson, account of him, 
291; recollections of Governor An- 
drew 292-293; recollections of and 
account of Wendell Phillips, 294-297; 
recollections of Charles Francis Adams, 
297-301; recollections of Robert C. 
Winthrop, 301-303; recollections of 
Mr. Prescott, 303 ; relations of to Mr. 
Bancroft, 314; first meeting with Mr. 
Bancroft, 315; friendship with him in 
his last years, 316; recollections of 
Dr. Palfrey, 321; recollections and ac- 
count of Francis Parkman, 322-325; 
earliest recollections of Longfellow, 
325; later recollections, 326; descrip- 
tion of Longfellow, 327-32S; recol- 
lections of Emerson, 328-329; recollec- 
tions of Dr. Holmes as a talker, 330; his 
love of jokes and his serious side, 331- 
332 ; his greatness as a writer, 332-333 ; 
description of Dr. Holmes, 333; recol- 
lections of him at the Atlantic din- 
ner and the Historical Society, 334; 
anecdotes of him at Nahant, 335 ; his 
pleasure in his own success, 336; let- 
ters from Dr. Holmes, 337; recollec- 
tions of Lowell at Cambridge, 338; 
anecdotes of Lowell, 339; friendship 
with him after his return from England, 



360 



INDEX 



340; his speeches and his writings, 341 ; 
friendship with and account of Thomas 
Bailey Aldrich, 346-350; meets Edwin 
Booth, 349; meets Edmund Gosse, 
349. 

Lodge, John Ellerton, merchant of Bos- 
ton, 3; counting-room and ships, 22- 
23 ; description of, 27 ; his courage, 27 ; 
his generosity, 28; his companionship, 
28-29 ; his love of poetry and reading, 
29-31; passport, 34; his visits to 
England, 35; generosity to orphan 
asylum, 56; buys 31 Beacon Street, 
59; raises fund to buy Mr. Eliot's 
library, 60; letter to Mr. Eliot, 62; 
Mr. Prescott's allusion to, 62; gives 
watch to H. C. Lodge, 79; buys hotel 
place at Nahant, 90; president of 
board of directors of Boston Theatre, 
96-97; death of, 106; leaves Whigs 
and supports Fremont, 113; desire 
to go to war, 124; letter from Ban- 
croft, 319. 

Lodge, Matthew, 4. 

Lodge, Thomas, archdeacon, 4. 

Lodge, Thomas, poet, 4. 

Longfellow, Henry Wadsworth, poems 
about Nahant, 32; early recollections 
of, 54; friendship for Sumner, 277- 
326; anecdote of Sumner, 278; at 
Nahant, 325; attractiveness in soci- 
ety, 326; his criticism of Schurz's ad- 
dress, 326 ; -327; personal appearance, 
327; sends H. C. Lodge poem for 
the International Review, 328; Dr. 
Holmes's address on, 334. 

Lord, Judge Otis, 78. 

"Lost Cause," sympathy with, 129. 

Lothrop, Dr. S. K., 273. 

Lowell, Augustus, 273. 

Lowell, James Russell, his course in Eng- 
lish literature at Harvard, 186; as a 
talker, 330; at Cambridge, 338; hatred 
of Jews and anecdote of, 339; bril- 
liancy as a speaker, 340-341. 

Lowell, Judge John, 251-252. 

Lyman, George, schoolmate at Mr. Sul- 
livan's, 66. 

Nahant, drives to, when a boy, 26-27; 

description of, 32; accounts of, in 

prose and verse, 32; account of hotel 

at, 33; burning of hotel at, 89. 
Napier, Lady, at Nahant, 34. 
Napier, Lord, at Nahant, 34. 
Napoleon, Louis, 155; description of, 

156-157. 
Newport, Rhode Island, description of, 

88-89. 
New South Church, 15. 
Nickerson, kidnapper of Allen Rice, 74; 

identified at jail, 76; convicted, 79. 
North American Review, editorship of, 

240-241; work on. 244-245. 

Oberammergau, Passion play at, 226. 
Offenbach operas, 158-159. 



Otis Place, 14. 

Otis, William, advice to jump overboard, 
85-86. 



Palfrey, Dr. John G., recollections of, 
321. 

Palmer, Sir Roundell, opinion of Ben- 
jamin, 256. 

Paris in 1866, 155 ff.; after the war, 227; 
the Commune, 227-229; contemporary 
description of, 229-231. 

Parker, Francis E., description of, 259; 
wit, 260; in State Senate, 260-261; 
personal appearance of, 261 ; at dinner 
to Diaz, 262; anecdote of waiter, 262. 

Parkman, Mrs., her school, 20; descrip- 
tion of, 20-21. 

Parkman, Francis, dinner at Judge 
Gray's, 251; physical obstacles to his 
work, 322; standing of his histories, 
323; early recollections of, 323; in 
later years, 323-324; character and 
ability, 325. 

Parkman, Henry, 22; schoolmate, 65. 

Paul, Herbert, consolidation of the 
United States, 132. 

Peirce, Benjamin, description of, 55; Mr. 
Motley's message to, 311. 

Peirce, Benjamin, Jr., in Paris, 159; de- 
scription of, 160. 

Pennoyer, William, Lowell's allusion to, 
341. 

Phillips, Wendell, house in Essex Street, 
15; feeling toward Sumner and letters 
about him, 284-285; character in 
politics, 294; looks and appearance, 
295; his attractive manner, 296; his 
advice about public speaking, 297. 

Photius, H. C. Lodge asks Lowell and 
Holmes about, 339-340. 

"Pip," first horse of H. C. Lodge, 88-89. 

Pollock, Sir Frederick, sends book to H. 
C. Lodge, 263. 

Porcupine Club, 274. 

Prescott, William H., home at Nahant, 
33; allusion to J. E. Lodge, 62; in- 
herited recollections of, 312-313; let- 
ter to Mrs. Henry Cabot, 313. 

Prince of Wales, ball for, 100. 



Ravels, the, account of, 91. 

Reed, Thomas Brackett, anecdote of ad- 
mission to the bar, 247; as a talker, 
330. 

Republican torchlight procession, 114. 

Rhodes, James Ford, opinion of Park- 
man's work, 322. 

Rice, Charles Allen Thorndike, 72; cus- 
tody awarded to father, 73; abducted 
from school. 74; carried by mother to 
England, 75; later life and death, 79- 
80. 

Rice, Henry, father of Allen Rice, 72; 
divorce, 73; desires H. C. Lodge as 
witness, 75; gives ring to H. C. Lodge, 
79. 



INDEX 



361 



Rice, Mrs. Henry, divorce, 73; takes 
Allen Rice to England, 75; probably 
one of the kidnappers, 77. 

Rodin, Auguste, 220. 

Ropes, John C, story of generosity of 
J. E. Lodge, 28. 

Ropes and Gray, H. C. Lodge studies 
in office of, 246. 

Rosebery, Lord, 150; as a talker, 330. 

Round Hill, Northampton, Massa- 
chusetts, Bancroft's school at, 314. 

Rubio, Senator, at Diaz dinner, 262. 

Russell, George, 203 and 216. 

Russell, Lord John, 148. 

Saint Helier, Lady, her impression of 

Mr. Motley, 306. 
Salerno, 187. 
Santo Domingo, 4. 

Sargent, Horace, schoolmate at Mr. Sul- 
livan's, 66. 
Sargent, Lucius Manlius, schoolmate at 
Mr. Sullivan's, 66; account of, 274- 
275. 

Saville, Lady Theresa (wife of Mr. 
Ellerton), 152. 

Schneider, Hortense, in Offenbach's op- 
eras, 158. 

" School Days at Rugby," criticism of, 69. 

Schurz, Carl, Judge Gray's feeling about, 
251; story of Evarts, 257; his Boston 
address criticised by Longfellow, 326- 
327. 

Schuyler, General Philip, 173. 

Shaw, George Bernard, 209. 

Shaw, Colonel Robert Gould, 123. 

"Short History of the Colonies," 268. 

Simpson, Michael Henry, at Harvard, 
232; with H. C. Lodge in Rome, 233; 
his beliefs and plans, 235-236; his 
death, 237. 

Smith, kidnapper of Allen Rice, 74; 
identified at jail, 76; convicted, 79. 

Sothern, in "Lord Dundreary," 153. 

Stephen, Mrs. Leslie, 226. 

Stevens, Paran, starts hotel at Nahant, 
33; failure of hotel, 89-90. 

Stockton, Howard, Porcupine Club and 
Boston Athenaeum, 274-275. 

Story, William W., 162; as sculptor and 
writer, 163; fondness for Italy, anec- 
dote, 164; at Nahant, 165; letters 
from, 165-171; in 1871, 231. 

Story, Mrs., 226. 

Stratford, 143. 

Stuart, Gilbert, anecdote of, 296. 

Sturgis, Henry, 146. 

Sturgis, Howard, 146. 

Sturgis, Julian, 146. 

Sturgis, May, 146. 

Sturgis, Russell, account of, 145; in 
1871, 225. 

Sturgis, Mrs. Russell, account of, 144 and 
146. 

Sullivan, Thomas Russell, Sr., his 
school, 64. 

Sullivan, Thomas Russell, Jr., descrip- 
tion of wharves and ships, 24; treas- 



ure-seeking, 38; schoolmate at Mr. 
Sullivan's, 66; as Colleen Bawn in 
play-room, 93. 

Summer Street, 14-15; residents in, 
18. 

Sumner, Charles, habit of coming to 
Nahant, 33; earliest recollections of, 
45; Brooks's attack upon, 45-46; 
generosity toward South and eulogy 
by Lamar, 48; scene on return to 
Boston after assault, 49; physical 
effects of assault, 50; letter on death 
of J. E. Lodge, 107; friendship with 
H. C. Lodge's family, 276; at Nahant 
every summer and note to H. C. Lodge, 
277; personal appearance and learn- 
ing, 278; speeches and conversation, 
279; attack on Grant, 280; lack of 
humor, 280-281; his reply to Gam- 
betta, 281; his announcement to 
Motley of his appointment, 282; his 
vanity, 282-285; his essential great- 
ness, 285; his real nature, 286; public 
service and course in direct claims, 287 ; 
policy as to Canada and Cuba, 288; 
policy as to the South, 288-289; his 
place in history, 289-290; his lov- 
ableness, loneliness, courage, 290; 
Longfellow's friendship for, 326. 

Sumner, George, 290. 

Swettenham (Governor of Jamaica), 
150. 

Swift, Henry, writes burlesque with H. 
C. Lodge, 189. 

Thackeray, W. M., anecdote of, 336. 
Thackeray, Miss, 226. 
Thuolt, Mr., teacher of riding, 87. 
Ticknor, George, his opinions of Quincy 

and Phillips, 295; description of, 295- 

296. 
"Tippoo Sahib," 97. 
Titiens, as Lucrezia Borgia, 153. 

Wadsworth, Herbert, schoolmate, 65. 

Wadsworth, Livingston, schoolmate, 65. 

Walley, John, soldier and judge, 5; an- 
cestor of Wendell Phillips, 296. 

Walley, Mary, 5. 

Walley, Thomas, 5. 

Ward, Artemus, account of, 101. 

Warren, William, account of, 92. 

Warwick, 143. 

Washington, George, visit to George 
Cabot at Beverly, 41-42; anecdotes 
of, in letter from Story, 169-171; 
throwing dollar, 256-257. 

Webster, Daniel, opinion of George 
Cabot, 10; house in Summer Street, 
18; friendship for Henry Cabot and 
letter about trout. 43-44 ; anecdote of, 
by Dr. Ellis, 270-271: feeling of 
Robert C. Winthrop toward, 302. 

Wednesday Evening Club, 273. 

West, Sir Algernon, 203 and 216. 

Wheatleigh, William, brings out "Henry 
IV," 99. 



362 



INDEX 



White. Edward Douglas (Chief Just 
34 

White (Governor "f Louisiana), 34 

Whittier, Charles, dinner t<> Diaz, 261 
262 

Whlttler, John <; . describes Nahant, .'i-'; 
description <>f. l<><>ks and character, 
342; character of iii> poetry and let- 
ter from, 343 3 1 1 

Willie, v P., describes Nahant, 32. 



Wilson Henry, account of and Impression 
made bj . 201 

\\ ln( hrop, H"(" rl C, presld< ' I ■- 

1 1 . toricai Bodei > . 
w ■ Inesdaj Evening Club, 278; ap- 
pearance, 301 . political character, 

Winthrop Place, 14; houses In, 18; 

residents In i s 
Wolcol ' ii mtlngton, di atfa <>f. I 



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